Aryna Sabalenka faces Madison Keys in the Australian Open final on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025 (1/25/25) at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria.
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus plays a backhand return to Paula Badosa of Spain during their semifinal match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. on Saturday night is not the same Madison Keys who was the runner-up at the U.S. Open back in 2017, the one other time the American participated in a Grand Slam final.
It took her a while to realize that the problem wasn’t so much the jitters themselves. Those are normal. Everyone feels them.“I’ve done a lot of work trying to NOT get rid of nerves, because I think in the past, in my head, it was kind of always, ‘The people who play amazing in the tight moments, they either don’t have nerves or they figure out how to get rid of them,’” Keys explained.
“At the end, Madison was kind of brave with her decisions,” said Swiatek, who lost more games to Keys in the semifinal than the 14 in her previous five matches combined.“That’s probably one of the biggest lessons that I can take from that U.S. Open final — just be OK with knowing that I’m probably going to be uncomfortable 99% of the time that I’m on the court,” Keys said, “and that’s OK.”
That is also a perfect description of Sabalenka’s style. She’s learned to control her strokes, and will mix in a slice or drop shot every so often, mind you, but the grunt-accompanied huge serves and groundstrokes are still her hallmarks.“What’s really impressive is her mentality — her ability to kind of always go for it, no matter what the score is,” Keys said.
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