Madison Keys was understandably upset with her performance after she endured a shocking third-round loss to World No.120 Evgeniya Rodina.
“Honestly I think today was a massive mishandle of nerves,” she said. “I felt good, was up 5-2, and then I felt my mind go away and played a couple of sloppy games.”
“All of a sudden it was 5-All, and that’s when nerves hit me. Then it was just kind of dealing with that.”
The American continued, “When you’re down a set and 4-0, it’s a lot easier to think, ‘I probably should play better now and do that’.”
“And then when I was down in the third set I would bring my level up and then go up to serve and get nervous. I just didn’t play well enough when it mattered.”
Keys admits she let her mind wander
When Keys was asked why felt nervous on court, she explained that she had started looking ahead to her next match.
“For the first time in a long time, I came in here the other day and was like, ‘So if you win, then you play this person’,” she said. “And I think that kept being in the back of my mind.”
“I think that’s something that with experience I have to be able to completely push aside and not think about. But I don’t think I did a great job of that today.”
Keys was due to face Serena Williams in the last 16 if the older American beat Kristina Mladenovic, but the World No.11 does not think the identity of her opponent was the important thing.
“I don’t even think it’s because it was Serena or anything like that,” she said. “I think it really could have been anyone. But I just wasn’t thinking about my match right now in that moment.”
“I think I literally could have played anyone the next round, but the fact that I felt my mind go there made it really hard to be play really well, be super-focused and then have to kind of reset everything and find my timing and all of that in the middle of a match.”
Although the American was thinking ahead to her potential last 16 encounter, she insists she was not looking any further ahead than that.
Keys to develop a plan to manage her dips
Keys also feels it is unfair to label some of the top ten seed’s defeats at Wimbledon 2018 as upsets.
“I think a lot of those matches were actually really tough matchups – especially some of the early rounds,” she said.
“I don’t necessarily think that was an easy match or an upset. There are lots of really good players right now and if one player has a slightly bad day and the other player has a really on day, then it can go either way.”
While Keys may be right that some of the top seeds’ defeats should not be considered shock results – Ekaterina Makarova’s win over Caroline Wozniacki for example – her loss to Rodina was definitely an upset.
Moreover, to avoid suffering a similar fate in the future, the young American should probably follow the example of her phenomenally successful compatriot Serena Williams.
“It’s definitely been a challenge that I have had to deal with where all of a sudden I’m the one that’s supposed to win and people are playing with nothing to lose and playing their best tennis,” Keys said.
“A lot of times you just have to weather the storm and play better on those big points, and the fact (that Serena has) basically done that her whole career is really impressive.”
She continued, “I think the biggest thing (I need to do) is have a plan for when I feel (the dip) happening and catch it quicker. It’s a lot easier to catch it if it’s two points and not two games.”
