At the same time, Keys’ sunny disposition helped make her popular in the locker room as well as among the general public. Everyone loved “Maddie,” who in 2020 launched the anti-bullying Kindness Wins foundation, which is dedicated to promoting “kindness to youth, kindness to self, and kindness to others in times of struggle.”
As an athlete, Madison Keys was all familiar with the sense of being bullied, at least on the court. Her struggle to feel that she belonged among the elites was a long one.
In making the final of the Australian Open, Keys logged the longest gap between a player’s first and second appearance in a Grand Slam final. Looking back over the years in a pre-Indian Wells meeting with reporters, Keys explained that all that time she had just assumed that top players who won major events were different because they had the ability to “turn off” the nerves, effectively neutralizing them.
“I don’t know why I had that thought,” she said. “Or where I got that from, but that’s just kind of how I thought things went. So for me, when nerves would finally start happening, it was an immediate kind of panic of, well, now I’m not going to be able to play well because people can’t win with these feelings.”
