2017 US Open proved a turning level for Keys

American: ‘It was a rollercoaster of everything’

By Richard Osborn

You always remember your first Grand Slam remaining, irrespective of which method it goes.

Madison Keys would concur. Her big-stage breakthrough got here within the borough of Queens, N.Y, in the summertime of 2017, when she powered her well past the likes of Elina Svitolina, Kaia Kanepi and CoCo Vandeweghe and into the primary all-American US Open title tilt in a decade-and-a-half.

But as a substitute of being a excessive second, a degree of validation for an athlete lengthy burdened with a ‘Next Big Thing’ tag, it led to tears and a protracted, heartfelt hug on the internet from her opponent, Sloane Stephens: A 6-3, 6-0 defeat in only one hour and one minute.

Nearly a decade later, Keys, now 31, says it was a teachable second.

“It feels like a long time ago,” she stated on Tuesday on the Cincinnati Open, the place she’s into the Round of 16 for the second yr in a row.

“It was the first Grand Slam final that I had ever been in, and I think I learned a lot from that experience, just learning how to manage my energy and emotions throughout two weeks. I feel like playing as an American, it was a rollercoaster of everything. I learned a lot from that, how to manage those days at Slams when things get busier.”

Keys, in fact, would ultimately get her Grand Slam title. It got here in 2025 on the Australian Open, when solely months after her wedding ceremony she defeated two-time reigning champion Aryna Sabalenka, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, at 29 turning into the match’s oldest first-time girls’s champion and the participant with the longest hole between their first two main finals within the Open Era.

That doesn’t imply Keys, the proprietor of 11 profession tour-level singles titles, has given up on the notion of profitable all of it in Flushing Meadows.

“It would be incredible to be able to put myself in that position again,” she stated. “I’ve been able to get close a couple of times [she returned to the semis in 2018 and 2023]. I think it’s really just focusing on the things that are going to give me the best opportunity to get myself back in that position. That and just asking for a little bit of luck, hoping you get back in that position again.”

The classes from that maiden remaining may simply assist her get again there. One of them is that you just typically have to take a break from all of it.

“You kind of know that you’re going to have some ups and downs,” stated Keys, who reached a career-high No. 5 within the PIF WT Rankings final yr. “But I think the biggest thing is knowing when to take some time and get completely away from the court and the gym, just to give yourself a little bit of a break.”

“I think it’s really easy to just get in this cycle of doing the same thing over and over again. It can get a little monotonous, and all of a sudden you blink and it’s been two months and you haven’t had a day off. I think it’s really just being conscious and making sure that when you’re on the court you are 100 percent present.”