AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 14, 2025

Madison Keys

Press Conference

M. KEYS/A. Li

6-4, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: First off, congrats on Adelaide. On a six-match winning streak now. Your thoughts on your start to the year?

MADISON KEYS: So far so good. I think I've had some really good matches, and I feel like it's always a tricky first round coming off of a win, and you don't have a ton of time to get used to the courts here and everything.

I mean, I thought Ann played so well today, as well. All in all, really happy with getting the win today.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Madison, just with your preparation for the season, were you at all surprised by the level that you were able to consistently kind of deploy in Adelaide, or was that kind of, yeah, where things have been, what you have been seeing on the practice court, I guess?

MADISON KEYS: We put in a lot of work in offseason. I decided kind of to end my year a little bit early and kind of break it up into two little blocks. Being able to have that time and really kind of actually make some tweaks and have the time to do that, I think, was really beneficial.

Now it looks like it was a genius move (laughing), but at the time it was kind of, like, do we try to squeak out some more weeks? I just feel like when you are able to not only give yourself some just really good time at home to focus on things, but you just start the year really fresh.

I think a lot of the changes, being able to actually implement them in matches, was my big goal for the beginning of the year. I feel like I've been doing it pretty well so far.

Q. How much of that work, in terms of the changes and things, how much of that time was spent on equipment tinkering, and how much of it was spent on what would be whatever else, technical, tactical?

MADISON KEYS: It was a little bit of both. We kind of started tweaking the serve before the China swing, so there was a little bit of a tweak, but it wasn't 100% there.

But I just felt like it was really important to try to start getting used to something new before just throwing yourself into slam play and it feeling super fresh.

So being able to do that in a two-part way while also still trying to put it together in matches I think actually worked really well.

Then I feel like as far as equipment goes, I have always been the kind of person that I pick something up, and I say I love it or I hate it in three seconds. Once I'm set on something, I'm pretty set on it. So that was actually the easiest part of any of the changes.

Obviously a big one for me, just having always used one thing for my entire life, but I picked it up, and I was, like, yeah, my life is easier so I'm just going to go with this.

Q. Because of control? Because of the feel?

MADISON KEYS: It's a little bit of everything. I feel like I get a little bit more easy power, but there's more control, which seems counterintuitive, but I'm running with it.

Really it just feels like I have the ability to kind of maneuver things a little bit easier versus I felt like in the past using my equipment, it was always either really good or really bad. I had a really hard time on days where I wasn't really feeling it being able to tweak things. It felt really difficult to do that.

This, I feel like I have a little bit more of a control over the average days and being able to kind of find a happy medium.

Q. As you think about these matches you've played this year is far, is there a particular aspect of your game you're especially pleased with?

MADISON KEYS: I'm actually very proud of myself for my serve. I feel like I kind of changed it kicking and screaming a little bit just because it was always something that worked well enough, so why mess with it?

But then my body slowly started to fall apart a little bit with it, so that was kind of the final nail in the coffin where I had to actually make a change. But being able to change something that's such a big part of, I would especially say, my game and also do it in a two-part way and just -- I mean, I spent basically all of Beijing and all of Wuhan so uncomfortable, just because it wasn't end game but it wasn't what I wanted it to be either. So just really trying to buy into that process took a little bit of patience.

I'm really glad that I did it and we were able to get to where it is now.

Q. Are you somebody who will look at statistics maybe with regard to the serve, let's say, for example, and say, Oh, look at where my percentage is or ace numbers or breakpoints saved or any of that? Do you look at those numbers or think about them at all to see if that matches maybe what it feels like is happening out there?

MADISON KEYS: So we actually looked at some stats for the beginning of the year, and it was kind of the thing where I was, like, Okay, you're right, I need to change something, because my first-serve percentage was actually really high, almost too high to where I was playing it a little bit safe, but my first-serve points won wasn't as high as it should be if I was serving at 80%. It took a while for me to be okay to serve at 62% or 58%.

To me, I would come off the court and be, like, I was serving at 28%. They're, like, you served at 65%. I was, like, Oh, okay, well, it felt like I missed every single first serve.

That was kind of the hard thing for me just getting to the point of going for it more and getting more free points is actually better than making every single first serve.

So stats definitely helped me there, and it kind of took me out of how I was feeling and put me into a little bit more of a reality.

Q. When you say "we," that's Bjorn?

MADISON KEYS: Yeah.

Q. These are a lot of changes that you've been employing over the last six months, even longer than that. How much of that is a series of conversations that happened to get you to where you want to start embracing pretty radical changes for a tennis player, and how much of it is you wake up one day, and you're, like, Let's just go?

MADISON KEYS: I think that it's getting to a point where I feel like everyone's ball speed is pretty high. Everyone moves really well. I feel like I'm getting older and everyone else is getting younger somehow (laughing).

I don't know how that's working, but that's how I feel. So it just got to the point where it was, like, okay, if I really want to stay competitive, I have to do something different, because my body is breaking down a little bit more. I feel like everyone is catching up ball speed-wise. I can't just hit people off the court every single match anymore.

So it was a little bit of that. Then I think it was once I made one change, I got more comfortable with it. I was literally, like, the same for so long that the thought of any change was pretty scary for me. I just didn't want to do it because I felt like I was always so close to figuring it out that I would just figure it out.

Then it kind of just got to the point where I made one change, and I was, like, Whoa, that made my life way easier. I hate to admit it, but I had to say Bjorn was right a lot.

Q. It was on camera.

MADISON KEYS: Yeah, I know. He'll love that.

From there it was kind of, okay, if something super small can make that big of a difference and make my life that much easier, why don't we just keep going for it?

Q. Can I posit a theory and see if you agree with me?

MADISON KEYS: Sure.

Q. You were also doing all this home reno at that time. When you talked about it, it sounded very similar to the way you talked about this. Well, if I knock down this wall, then that opens up -- oh, and actually, a vaulted ceiling... everything changes.

MADISON KEYS: Yeah, all of a sudden, if you are going to rip things apart, you might as well rip everything apart, right? Maybe you are on to something (laughter).

Q. A bit of a random question, but I'm just wondering, either from a tennis standpoint or just because of who you are away from the court, do you prefer playing at 11 a.m., 1 a.m., somewhere in between? If you could pick when you would play your matches, what time would you play?

MADISON KEYS: If I could never play at 1 a.m. ever again for the rest of my life, I would be so happy. I feel like I have played so many late matches in my career.

While they've been very fun and I have won a lot of them and the crowd has been great, I would love to see some 11 a.m. people for the rest of my career (laughing). It's just a great time slot.

You know when you're going to go on. There's no chaos. You go to bed at a totally normal time. Yeah, I feel like I've lived my night owl life, and I would really love to be that first-on slot for the rest of time.

Q. Just obviously you've been signing the camera to honor L.A. and what is happening there. You have connections to that city and trained there. Just what your kind of general reaction is? How much are you paying attention to the level of detail of what's coming out of there, and how much are you trying to compartmentalize? Just what your thoughts are.

MADISON KEYS: I have a lot of friends that are still there, so I think it would be hard to say that I'm not paying pretty close attention to it.

I lived there for a few years. I trained there for a few years. It's still a place that's very near and dear to me, and I have a lot of people that I love that live there.

I think it's really hard to just kind of sit on the other side of the world. I mean, even if I was at home, it's not like I could really do anything. I've been struggling a little bit with the feeling of, how do I help, what do I do?

I feel like I have all these action items that I'm going to do the moment that I get home when I can actually, you know, start sending stuff and actually kind of physically helping in any way that I can. No, I've been pretty much obsessing about it and looking at it and making sure that my friends are evacuating when they need to evacuate.

I feel like there's been one terrible thing after another. Obviously with all the flooding in North Carolina and then obviously Florida got hit by two hurricanes back-to-back, it just feels like every time something bad happens and it's off the news and we kind of forget about it, and then there's something else that's happening.

I feel like we're kind of just in a spiral right now of kind of bad news, but I feel like I'm just trying to do my part to help.