“The one thing I really wanted to try to be better at was not playing more passive in big points and really, honestly, just trying to emulate the way she trusts her game and the way she goes after it,” Keys says of Sabalenka.
That new attitude, along with a new racquet and a new serve, have helped Keys win 11 straight matches, including perhaps the biggest of her career, over Swiatek, 10-8 in a final-set tiebreak.
Read more: Madison Keys—with a new racquet, serve and attitude—is into her first Australian Open final
Can it get her one more, and her first major title? After beating No. 2, Keys will, fittingly, have to go through No. 1 to do it. She’s 1-4 against Sabalenka, and one of those defeats may have been the most painful of her pro life. In the US Open semifinals two years ago, Keys led 6-0, 5-3, and served for the match, before losing 7-6 in the third.
