TENNIS – The Australian Open revealed US teenager Madison Keys on the Grand Slam stage. Keys has been considered the future star of US tennis since she won her first WTA match at the age of 14 when she beat Ajla Kudryavtsev at the MPS Group Tournament in Ponte Vedra (Florida). Keys joined the Chris Evert Academy in Boca Raton (Florida) at the age of nine and is now coached by Lindsey Davenport. Diego Sampaolo
Madison reached the quarter final in a WTA Tournament for the first time in her career in Sydney 2013 defeating Lucie Safarova and Zheng Jie before losing to Li Na in three close sets. Keys won her first match against a top-ten when she defeated Li Na in Madrid in 2013. She reached the quarter finals at the Aegon Classic on grass before losing against Agnieszka Radwanska in the third round at Wimbledon. She improved her ranking by 112 places reaching the World Number 37 in the WTA Ranking at the end of 2013.
Keys started the 2014 season with a semifinal in Sydney where she defeated Simona Halep before losing to Angelique Kerber. The US rising star won her first WTA title at Eastbourne defeating two top ten players Jelena Jankovic and Angelique Kerber. She was forced to withdraw from her third round match against Yaroslava Shvedova at Wimbledon due to a leg injury. She finished the 2014 season in 31st place in the WTA Ranking.
Keys, daughter of Rick and Christine who work as attorneys, is now coached by former World Number 1 Lindsey Davenport who guided the teenager to her first Grand Slam semifinal at the Australian Open after beating Casey Dellacqua in three sets in the second round before taking the scalp of last year’s Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the third round and winning the match against another Madison (Brengle) in the fourth round. Keys beat Venus Williams in the quarter final in three sets despite a leg injury during the second set. She lost against Serena Williams in the semifinal but confirmed that she has a potential as a future top star. She entered the Australian Open ranked 35 but she will join the top 20 next week (she is projected at Number 20). Serena paid tribute to Keys after their semifinal saying: “It was an honour for me to play against someone who will be the Number 1 in the future. It’s great for me and Venus because we know that finally there are other Americans who are constantly playing well, showing that they want to be the world’s greatest”, said Serena.
Keys fulfilled her life dream when she beat her childhood idol Venus Williams 6-3 4-6 6-4 in the quarter final before losing to Serena in the semifinal. If she had beaten Serena, she would have become the fourth player to beat both Serena and Venus in the same Grand Slam Tournament (the only three players to achieve this feat were Kim Clijsetrs, Martina Hingis and Justine Henin). Madison started playing tennis at the age of four when she watched Venus playing at Wimbledon. Madison asked her parents if she could dress a white dress similar to that Venus was wearing at Wimbledon.
Last November she started working with three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsey Davenport and her husband Jon Leach. It was supposed that Davenport would have worked with Madison during the off-season but the teenager impressed Davenport that the former US star decided to take up her coaching role guiding Madison to the semifinal.
With her first prize money at the age of 14 when she won her first WTA match Madison bought a new mobile phone. With the money earned at the Australian Open she is planning a new handbag. “I told myself, I will go out and buy a Louis Vuitton handbag”, said Madison Keys
Madison Keys signed on as Sports Illustrated Kids Special Correspondent communicating with readers in a series of monthly videos on her life traveling the WTA Circuit. These videos feature her world travels, playing tournament, training and exploring new cities and spending time with her fellow players. She is featured in Sports Illustrated Kids magazine which has over three million readers.
