Newly-crowned Australian Open champion Madison Keys revealed her semi-final win over Iga Swiatek convinced her she could win the tournament. (More Sports News)
ꦐKeys beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-3 2-6 7-5 in the final, having also been taken to three sets by Swiatek on Thursday – ultimately winning the deciding tie-break 10-8 – and the 29-year-old says overcoming that hurdle made her belief.
♋"I think winning that match the other night against Iga was really kind of a big hurdle where I felt like... I always believed that I could do it, but to do it that way, I thought to myself after the match that I can absolutely win on Saturday," she said.
🌼Keys did not have it all her own way against Swiatek, having saved match point before eventually getting the victory.
ඣThat turnaround could, in part, be credited to a newfound belief that had been instilled by her team.
🎶"Even with the injuries and some tough losses, I just felt like I was starting to find myself a little bit more," she said.
♊"I was starting to be a little bit more clear-headed and present on court. I felt like I was starting to get better at problem-solving on court in the moment.
🌠"In the past, I felt like sometimes during matches, especially when things started to go awry, I was almost not in my own body and I was looking down at myself. I felt like I couldn't connect my brain to my body.
𝔉"I felt like last year I started being able to be more in the moment and take each point by point, instead of panicking and getting a little bit too broad.
ꦯ"I felt like I started playing some good tennis and I started figuring things out when I wasn't playing great.
🍬"Then through the off-season, I just put in a lot of hard work. I started to see that things were going more the way that I wanted. I just feel like it's one of those things that slowly keeps building. All of a sudden you're winning a bunch of matches in Adelaide. Then you're coming in here."
♛In winning the title, and beating both Swiatek and Sabalenka en route to doing so, Keys became the first player to defeat the WTA's top two players in the semi-final and final at a grand slam since Maria Sharapova at the 2006 US Open.
🎐But she says taking things one game at a time was the necessary approach to take.
💯"I really felt like going into each match that if I could just try to go out, play how I wanted to play, I was really just going to give myself the opportunity to try to win," she said.
🌳"I felt like not stressing about things that I couldn't control, I was able to play a little bit more freely. I think there was confidence in maybe not playing matches amazingly from start to finish and having some dips here and there.
𒅌"I was able to end on a really high note each time and figure out how to get back in matches or how to close out a match really well.
🌳"I think part of it was that I never really got ahead of myself in each round. I never once thought about the next round until I was actually there."
