TimesofIndia.com in Melbourne: Professional sport is decided by moments. By sudden change in momentum. By luck. By one wicket. By one boundary. By one jab. By one point. The margins between win and loss, joy and sorrow, could well be just that. Years and years of hard work could well be decided by these small facets. How you play that one delivery coming at you at 150 kmph. How well you land that 150 kmph in the first place. How, if at all, you duck that right hook. How you play that forehand when down match point. Or, conversely, play the big points – such as a match point – when you’ve got lots at stake. Madison Keys and Aryna Sabalenka had plenty at stake when they took court in front of tens of thousands of people at the Rod Laver Arena on Saturday. A $3.5 million prize cheque. 2000 ranking points. Opportunity to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup. Accolades.
Sabalenka had done these things before already, though. Twice (in 2023 and 2024). She was going for a three-peat at Melbourne Park. No one had won three in a row here since Martina Hingis in 1999. She had had a largely uneventful run to the title match. Except for the tricky second set, under stiff conditions, against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarter-final, things had gone smoothly and as per plan.
Keys, meanwhile, had ticked none of those boxes. Her last run to a major final was eight years ago – the longest gap between first two women’s singles Grand Slam finals. She had not been in the top 10 for two years. And her run to the final was laden with high-profile wins – against World No. 10 Danielle Collins, World No. 6 Elena Rybakina, World No. 28 Elena Svitolina and World No. 2 Iga Swiatek. Against Swiatek, Keys was required to save a match point.
On Saturday, Keys started and ended well. She broke Sabalenka in the very first game and to complete the full circle, did that once again in what was the eventual 38th game of the two-hour contest. In the moments that mattered, the miniscule bits in the grand scheme of things, Keys was braver and hit bigger shots against Sabalenka, considered one of the biggest and boldest hitters in women’s tennis.
In the seventh game of the decisive third set, Keys served at 30-30. The crowd was aware of the magnitude of the point as the intensity and decibel level went up. If it went Sabalenka’s way, she would have a break point to create a match-changing lead. Instead, Keys served wide to the forehand and punched a winner on the return to the other side of the court. Next point, a mirror image of it with a backhand winner.
Fast forward four games, it was 5-5 and 30-30, the sun had set over the Melbourne skyline and the twilight had made way for a clear and cool night. Keys bounced the ball to serve and the nerves, if any, were not quite visible for either player. They were dialled in, as you need to in professional sport from start to finish. One miscalculation, one mishit, any passivity and it could be curtains. Keys, though, was in the zone. She got down low to a deep return and diverted the ball into the corner for a winner. Next point, same direction for a similar outcome and she had pushed the envelope in Sabalenka’s side.
The Belarusian, who had started the match poorly, especially on serve, had regained control. But, as already mentioned, we were in small margins territory now. “Squeaky bum time,” as legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson referred to it. Four points separated Keys from the title. Sabalenka started by sending her forehand long on a mishit. Make that three. On the second, Keys romped to a little kick serve for a backhand winner. Two more to get. Sabalenka erred on the forehand a point later and it was Championship point. The World No. 1 saved one. Could she prolong the edge-of-the-seat encounter, everyone wondered. Many neutrals in the Rod Laver Arena hoped. Instead, Keys went inside out on the forehand once and then again, the first one came back but the second one didn’t. ‘Maddy’ had done it!
Keys was the 2025 Australian Open champion. Her first-ever Grand Slam title, 16 years after turning pro. The 30-year-old became the fourth oldest first-time Grand Slam winner. When the rankings are updated on Monday, she would match her career-best World No. 7 ranking.
The contrast in emotions was visible across the net. Keys erupted with smiles, joy, and sheer disbelief. She made her way to her team and exchanged hugs with everyone, including husband and coach Bjorn Fratangelo, whom she married only eight weeks ago.
For Sabalenka, meanwhile, it was bewilderment – at the outcome, the tennis she displayed and most problematically, she acknowledged, with her humility of the situation. The racket bore the brunt of that. She bumbled to her box and coaches, with whom she shares a great relationship filled with laughter and banter, as she made her way to the net for the customary handshake – or hug in this case. The 27-year-old then smacked her racket on the ground and walked off to the locker room.
“There definitely was a bit of frustration because I was so close to achieve [achieving] something crazy. When you’re out there, you’re fighting, but it seems like everything [was] going not the way you really want [it] to go. I just needed to throw those negative emotions at the end just so I could give a speech, not stand there being disrespectful. I was just trying to let it go and be a good person, be respectful,” she said in the post-match media interaction with a laugh. “I was stand [standing] there and just was like, ‘Okay, c’mon, you’ve been in her position. She deserves that. She was [a] better player than you.’ Just, you know, it was tough,” added Sabalenka.
During the first set and start of the second, Sabalenka would look at her box repeatedly, mumble something, and continue. Things were not going her way and Keys deserved most of the credit for that. If the serve was faltering, it was because it had come under the pump from the word go. The American, who had won the Australian Open warm-up event in Adelaide, had come out quickly off the blocks and was sending deep groundstrokes to counter Sabalenka’s game of dominating proceedings with her sheer power. The Belarusian, who has three major titles on hard courts, looked clueless.
She later said, at this point in her career, it was “trophy or nothing”.
“Nobody remembers the finalist, you know? Nobody puts, like, next to the winner [the] finalist’s name,” she said with a smile. “I mean, at this point, yeah, I go for titles. But, of course, I have to be proud of myself with the finals, three finals in the row. That’s something crazy. I hope that next year I’ll come back as a better player, and I’ll hold Daphne one more time,” she stated.
