Brisbane Preview: Madison Keys, Aryna Sabalenka renew Down Under rivalry

Madison Keys vs. Aryna Sabalenka

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“It’s good to start the year with a little bit of drama,” Madison Keys said after her last match.

“Little bit of drama” was something of an understatement. Keys beat fellow American Diana Shnaider by the jam-packed scores of 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5), in a three-hour third-rounder in Brisbane. Each player received a medical timeout, and Keys came back from 2-4 down in the third set to advance. It was the first triple-tiebreaker win of her career.

“That had a little bit of everything,” Keys said with a laugh when it was finally over.

What did surviving it earn her? A quarterfinal meeting with WTA No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. This is a rematch of last year’s Australian Open final, and, with all due respect to Sabalenka’s (misguided) Battle of the Sexes, the first important contest—one with top-tier ramifications—of the season.

It could also offer some early-season drama. Sabalenka and Keys have played two of most emotional contests of the last two years.

In the 2024 US Open semifinals, Keys won the first set 6-0 and served for the win in the second, before Sabalenka climbed back in it and squeaked out two tiebreakers. Keys was left disconsolate, as she wondered if, at 29, her Grand Slam breakthrough would ever come.

In Melbourne in 2025, Keys made that breakthrough, with a similarly tight and tense three-set win over Sabalenka in the final. This time it was the top seed who was left slamming her racquet in disgust when it was over.

A year later, Sabalenka can smile at the memory.

“Twelve months ago, I wasn’t really clear in my head after that loss,” she said in Brisbane on Thursday. “But honestly, she just overhit me, overplayed me, she played incredible tennis.”

“I have to say that loss really pushed me so hard to keep working, make sure it’s not gonna happen again…We always play incredibly fast matches, the intensity.”

Sabalenka did have more tough defeats in 2026, but not against Keys. When they met in the Indian Wells semifinals in late March, Sabalenka didn’t let the American into the match at all, demolishing her 6-0, 6-1. After that, Keys’ breakthroughs were over for the year.

All signs would seem to point to another Sabalenka win on Friday. She has dropped just seven games in her first two matches. She lifted her level exactly when she needed to in her 6-3, 6-3 win over Sorana Cirstea in the third round. And she’s the defending champion at this event. Keys, meanwhile, will be coming off her marathon with Shnaider.

That said, Keys is one of the few players who can, as Sabalenka put it, “overhit” her. When her ground strokes are clicking, as they were for much of their matches in Melbourne last year and New York in 2024, there’s not a whole lot that even Sabalenka can do about it.

But there’s also a reason Sabalenka is 5-2 against Keys, and has been the higher-ranked player for the entirety of this decade. She’s a better defender, she tempers her pace with more topspin margin, and her level doesn’t swing as wildly from one set to the next. After what happened last year, she’ll be on her guard on Friday.

Winner: Sabalenka