Australian Open champion Madison Keys on the mental battles won before first grand slam title

After years of coming up short, Madison Keys had to overcome her internal demons to land one of the sport’s biggest trophies, writes JULIAN LINDEN.

Before winning her first grand slam title, Madison Keys first had to convince herself that she was not a failure and that landing one of the sport’s biggest trophies didn’t really matter.

After years of coming up short in the majors, Keys had started to believe that she was a let down who had been unable to live up to her full potential.

She wasn’t but the pressure she was putting on herself was eating away at her confidence.

Finally, at age 29, the American broke through and won the Australian Open, beating the world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3 2-6 7-5 in a centre court thriller on Saturday night.

Madison Keys soaks it in after winning the Australian Open. Picture: Graham Denholm/Getty Images

“Everything kind of happens for a reason. For me specifically, I kind of had to go through some tough things,” Keys said.

“It just kind of forced me to look at myself in the mirror a little bit and try to work on the internal pressure that I was putting on myself.

“I felt like from a pretty young age, I felt like 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.

“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 okay if it didn’t happen. I didn’t need it to feel like I had a good career or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player.

“I feel like that finally letting go of that kind of internal just gave me the ability to actually go out and play some really good tennis to actually win a grand slam.”

Madison Keys opens up to the press after her victory at Melbourne Park. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AFP

After walking around Rod Laver Arena cradling the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, Keys opened up about her deep and personal wellbeing battles.

A child prodigy who made her first grand slam semi-final a decade ago when she was in her teens, the closest Keys had come to winning a major title was in 2017 when she finished runner-up at the US Open.

She made a stack of semis and quarters at all the big events but her inability to win a grand slam had impacted her mindset.

Her frustration was compounded by seeing a number of her close friends win titles, adding to her conviction that she was not good enough.

Madison Keys during her loss in the 2017 US Open final. Picture: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

“You’re getting older, you’re obviously in the later stages of your career, it kind of feels like, Will this ever actually happen? If it doesn’t happen, I didn’t live up to what everyone told me I should have done,” she said.

“So it kind of almost felt like it went from being something positive to something that was almost a little bit of a panic of, ‘why hasn’t it happened yet? Why haven’t I been able to do it?

“It really started to kind of weigh on me more where it was, What if I never do it? If I don’t do it, am I considered a failure?

“There was a lot of stuff that I had to, like, work through personally just with all of that just because of all of the pressure I was putting on myself with that.”

She got so depressed that she sought the help of a therapist, who reminded her that she was a great success story, regardless of whether she won a grand slam or not.

A grand slam at last for Madison Keys. Picture: Martin Keep/AFP

It turned out to be the best advice she ever got because it switched her way of thinking and freed her up to play naturally, without any burden of expectation, and led to her finally becoming the grand slam champion she had alway dreamt of.

“For a long time in my head I had this idea that people were able to kind of just ignore their nerves or doubts or anything like that and just kind of tunnel vision play tennis,” she said.

“In the past, if I ever had nerves come up or something, I typically would not play as well. So it started getting to the point where when nerves came up, I was thinking, Oh, no, now I’m going to play badly. It would almost kind of start this internal panic.

“For whatever reason, it was kind of just like this light bulb moment where I started really buying into I can be nervous and I can still play good tennis. Like, those things can live together.

“So I stopped fighting and trying to push away the feelings and pretending that they’re not there and just accepting them and really telling myself that they’re fine and they’re totally normal to be there, and I can still play tennis.”