In a tightly gripped Women’s Singles final of the Australian Open, American 16th seed Madison Keys has beaten current World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka, here in Melbourne on Saturday 25th January, 2025. Keys, aged 29 has won her career’s first grand slam title at the Australian Open tennis Championship. She could beat Sabalenka in three sets 6-3, 2-6, and 7-5. At the end of the tournament, Keys finished with 92 points, one point ahead of Sabalenka’s 91.
Madison Keys upsets Belarus’s Aryna Sabalenka, the two time defending champion who was eyeing to win her third consecutive Australian Open title. This kind of a streak was last achieved by Martina Hingis from 1997 to 1999. Keys had a chance to win the trophy for the second time, earlier in 2017 US Open where she finished first runner up, losing to fellow American Sloane Stephens and two semi-finals as well. Keys was simply ready with her moves, the powerful groundstrokes, the aggressive rerturns and especially clean serves.
Keys, who had never won a grand slam until tomorrow, had accepted the fact that she might never have the taste of the big win and not really live up to what’s expected out of her. She said, “From a pretty young age, I felt that if I never won a grand slam, then I wouldn’t have lived up to what people thought I should have been. That was a pretty heavy burden to kind of carry around.”
Keys added, “So I finally got to the point where I was proud of myself and proud of my career, with or without a Grand Slam. I finally got to the point where I was OK if it didn’t happen. I didn’t need to feel like I had a good career or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player.
I feel like finally letting go of that kind of internal talk that I had just gave me the ability to actually go out and play some really good tennis to actually win a Grand Slam.”
Keys had not only disappointed World No.1 Sabalenka, but also took over the chance from World No.2 Iga Swiatek defeating her in the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
Keys became the first woman after Serena Williams in 2005 to defeat both the WTA’s top two Champions at the Melbourne Park. Keys shared that after beating Swiatek in the semi-finals she got the confidence to beat Sabalenka too.
This was Key’s 46th grand slam appearance, the third most before winning a Women’s major title. Being only after Flavia Pennetta’s 49 and Marion Bartoli’s 47 appearances to win the Grand Slam.
Keys ended up saying, “I didn’t always believe that I could get back to this point. But to be able top do it and win, it means the world to me.”
