Therapy and Tennis: Madison Keys cracks open a door players have historically preferred to keep shut

It is said that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” If so, the sobering issue of poor mental health in tour-level tennis is becoming toxin-free, thanks to the courage and sensitivity of Madison Keys.

Keys openly acknowledges the benefits of therapy—not the “mental coaching” that involves things like deep-breathing exercises, or visualizing cracking a mighty ace, but real “I am a human being in need of some fixing” issues. In doing so, she has cracked open a door players have historically preferred to keep shut.

Perhaps not anymore.

Alexander Zverev, the world No. 3, was upset in the first round of Wimbledon. In a poignant press conference, the 28-year-old German star with a taste for life in the fast lane admitted that he feels extremely “lonely” and “empty,” no longer taking “joy” in his profession.

Zverev was asked, would he consider undergoing therapy?

“Yeah, maybe,” Zverev replied. “Maybe for the first time in my life I'll probably need it.”

Long-standing taboos about therapy, including even talking about it, are a feature of everyday life, with strong roots in tennis. The sport venerates mental strength above all else. Players fear to look weak if they display or confess vulnerability, or confusion. But then along came Keys, a 30-year-old prepped for the role she is playing by spearheading an anti-bullying effort that was later expanded into her Kindness Wins foundation.

“For me, everything being so focused on just tennis was not as helpful as I needed it to be,” Keys told reporters after her second-round win at Wimbledon, in a reference to previous experiments with sports psychology. “I think really going to someone and kind of looking at my overall life, and how that was influencing how I felt on the court, probably made the biggest difference to me.”

In addition to making her a happier person, the process also helped transform Keys into a late-career Grand Slam champion—a long-deferred honor she realized at the Australian Open.

Keys believes that, like so many tennis players, she got wrapped up in a narrow identity from a very young age. Being able to break with the gravitational pull of the game and getting in touch with other aspects of her personality has been critical for her.

“You are not just a tennis player,” she said. “You’re a full person that has all of these other really great attributes and other interests, and just different things in your life.”

Encouraging as the words are, they still point to an enormous and still growing problem. How do you define yourself with other interests and an alternate identity, if you are living off fluctuating day-to-day results in a year-round sport that demands endless travel and consistently shifting logistics?

The overcrowded schedule has become the elephant in the tennis room, and one of the main drivers of the growing focus on potential relief—like therapy.

Iga Swiatek, down to No. 4 in the rankings, was caught on camera crying after a recent loss in Bad Homburg—never mind that she had reached the final. Not long thereafter, meeting with the press at Wimbledon, she was asked about the main sources of stress in her profession.

“I think the scheduling is too intense,” Swiatek said, “There’s no point for us to play, like, over 20 tournaments in a year. I think these kinds of obligations and the rules about mandatory tournaments just put pressure on us. . .I think people would still watch tennis, maybe even more, if we played fewer tournaments.”

Yet when the tours and player organizations pencil it out, they are unwilling to make meaningful changes to the schedule. Truly disaffected players , tournaments and administrators might be better served if they focused all their energy on this one, fixable issue.

“I mean, no one’s got a solution,” ATP pro Alex de Minaur said of the problem at Wimbledon. “But the solution is simple: you shorten the schedule, right? What’s not normal is that for the last three, four years I’ve had two days off after Davis Cup, and I’ve gone straight into pre-season, straight into the new season again.”

You are not just a tennis player. You’re a full person that has all of these other really great attributes and other interests, and just different things in your life. Madison Keys

The mental health issues created by the hamster wheel of tennis are exacerbated by the growing threat of burnout. as the ferocity of the competition, and the skills and work it takes to remain competitive, mount. Last year, Wimbledon set a record for five-set matches, with 36. The carnage among top ATP and WTA seeds at Wimbledon this year also shows the stress on the game’s structure.

The great increase in cyberbullying and on-line abuse, particularly by gamblers, is another relatively new danger. When Keys was asked what advice she would give a gifted youngster whose identity was developing around tennis, she said, “Have a really great support system, and don’t go on Twitter.”

Considering all that, it’s no wonder that players are finally exploring the role therapy can play in an individual’s internal struggles. But is that really the solution, given the large number of players who are not fortunate enough to possess the all-around skill set—or resources—of a Carlos Alcaraz or an Aryna Sabalenka. Therapists are still considered a luxury item, even by many who can afford them.

Contemplating the state of mental health across the board in tennis is opening a host of thorny questions for the game’s architects and administrators. But at least those questions, thanks to the openness of Keys, Swiatek, Naomi Osaka and a few others—and now including, perhaps, Zverev—is generating the much needed sunlight tennis needs.