Madison Keys rediscovers her joy to burst into Australian Open contention

As Madison Keys and Paula Badosa took to Rod Laver Arena on Sunday morning in Melbourne, their fourth-round match played out to the sound of frequent gasps from the crowd. With Keys, one of the biggest ball-strikers in recent memory, such noises can often be reactions to the size of her misses as well as the spectacle of her shotmaking. There is rarely a middle ground.

In this case, Keys spent 69 minutes destroying every ball in sight, and her top 10 opponent in the process, beating the eighth seed 6-3, 6-1 to reach the quarter-final of the Australian Open.

It would usually be no surprise to see Keys produce such a performance on the big stage. She has been ranked in the top 10 in four seasons, reached four major semi-finals and contested the US Open final in 2017. But Keys had started the 2022 season at the nadir of her career after struggling through the pandemic. Having failed to regain her form as the tour restarted in 2020, Keys’ morale was further damaged after testing positive for Covid-19 just before she was due to fly to the 2021 Australian Open.

Then came the bubbles. Tennis players were mostly restricted to their hotel rooms and the tennis courts during tournaments last year. For Keys, such an arrangement meant her thoughts were often only about tennis – and she began to overthink. Her on-court issues soon bled into her personal life. “I was just at a very high anxiety level all of the time,” she said. “I wasn’t sleeping as well. It felt like there was literally a weight on my chest. I became so focused and obsessed with [tennis] that I wasn’t enjoying, really, anything because it’s all I was thinking about.”

Those struggles were seen in her performances on the court. Keys ended 2021 with a record of 11-15,