Madison Keys—with a new racquet, serve and attitude—is into her first Australian Open final

Can someone experience multiple senses of déjà vu at once? If so, Madison Keys may have found herself doing just that at the Australian Open just as Thursday became Friday, when she stepped up to serve at 7-8 in the third-set tiebreaker in her semifinal with Iga Swiatek.

Keys had been here before. Ten years ago, she had made the semifinals at this tournament as a 19-year-old, and then did it again in 2022. She had reached the semifinals at majors four other times—once at Roland Garros, three times at the US Open—and had won just one of those matches. The most recent of her defeats, to Aryna Sabalenka in New York in 2023, was the ultimate home-Slam heartbreaker. Keys won the first set 6-0 and served for the match, only to lose both the second and third sets in tiebreakers.

For a really long time I felt like I was so close doing it a certain way. I kind of just kept falling short. Madison Keys

Was something similar going to happen against Swiatek? This time Keys rolled through the second set 6-1. In the third, she had two break points to go up 5-3, and led 15-30 on Swiatek’s serve at 4-5. Both times she tightened up and missed. At 7-7 in the tiebreaker, Keys had a look at a forehand pass, but could only watch helplessly as Swiatek reflexed it back for a volley winner.

Still, while Keys had squandered chances in this match, she had also fought back from the brink several times. Serving at 4-4 in the third, she went down 0-40 before coming back to hold. At 5-6, she saved a match point with a strong return. And after being down by two points through much of the tiebreaker—1-3, 2-4, 3-5, 4-6, 5-7—she had leveled at 7-7.

Through the later stages, Keys said, semi-jokingly, that she “blacked out and was just running around.” She didn’t even remember that Swiatek had reached match point.

“I kind of kept telling myself, ‘Just try to get the next point,’” Keys said. “Especially at the end of the match, I really was just so focused on what I wanted to try to do. I think it helped me because I was just able to kind of solely focus on that. Win it or lose it, move on to the next point.”

By the time they reached 7-8, there weren’t many points left. Getting to the final was a now-or-never proposition. Keys took matters into her own hands. She stepped up and hit an ace for 8-8, then a service winner for 9-8. At match point, she played a return down the middle, and watched as Swiatek overhit a forehand long.

“It was so high level,” Keys said of the contest. “I was just trying to stay in it. The third set was just a battle. We were both battling some nerves, just pushing each other. Who can get that final point, and who can be a little bit better than the other one.

“Really proud of myself for being able to stay in that.”

What made the difference? How does a player put the past behind her and find a new fate at 29, after a dozen years on tour?

Keys says that during this off-season, she decided to be open to change.

“I think that the big focus for me was really just kind of buying into ‘I'll try anything, I’ll do anything, I’ll be open,’” Keys says.

“For a really long time I felt like I was so close doing it a certain way. I kind of just kept falling short. But in my head it was, ‘If I just keep doing it that way, maybe it will happen.’”

Keys switched racquets, changed her service motion and vowed that, when the important moments came, she wouldn’t flinch. The attitude, she said, “was a little bit more freeing.”

“My whole goal today was that no matter what, win or lose, I walked away and said that I did what I wanted to do, I followed the game plan, I went for things when I should have gone for things.”

Keys made those changes with her coach and husband, Bjorn Fratangelo. This year was the first at the Australian Open where coaches have been placed in the corners of the court, and Fratangelo’s presence there seemed to give Keys a boost, and keep the game plan front and center in her mind.

We’ve seen a number of players in recent years get a new lease on their careers at age 30; maybe Keys will be the next one. On Saturday, she’ll play her first Grand Slam title match since 2017, against Sabalenka.

After this match, though, she wasn’t quite ready to think about that. Her brain, Keys said, was racing to catch up with what she had just done.

When it did, she laughed and said something she had been waiting a long time to say Down Under:

I’m in the finals!