Madison Keys, who reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and is currently ranked No. 18, says she has to push harder to keep up with world No. 1 and fellow American Serena Williams.
The 20-year-old Keys reached the semifinals at the 2015 Australian Open, where she fell to Williams. Serena has won 21 Grand Slam singles titles and four majors in a row for the second time. She has said that Keys can some day win a Grand Slam.
"That was a really nice thing for her to say, and it definitely makes me work a lot harder," Keys told the Waterbury Republican-American. "If someone who is No. 1 and has been No. 1 for so long can say something like that about me, it makes me work hard and see if I can actually get there."
Keys added that she has been having a pretty good year, reaching the final of Charleston in addition to her strong Grand Slam performances, but she has also lost early at big tournaments like Indian Wells, Miami, and the French Open.
The American said that while she likes to speak to the press, she doesn’t look at her Twitter account all the time because some people are overly critical.
"People will say some really mean things sometimes," said Keys, who will play Stanford and New Haven next. "There may be great comments about you and people think that you're wonderful, but you don't really remember those. You remember the ones where people are saying mean, hateful things about you.”