Madison Keys puts last years stumbles behind her as US Open quest continues

To Madison Keys, it doesn’t feel possible.Everyone, she said, has reminded her the past two days that this is her 15th U.S.

Open, an annual appearance that began back in 2011 when she was just 16 years old and featured a run to the final in 2017.When she debuted, Keys was the lowest-ranked woman in the field at No.

455 and became the youngest player to win a match in Queens since 2005. So much has changed since then.She nearly conquered what she referred to as the “big-show Grand Slam” and made two other semifinals.

She won an Australian Open for her first Grand Slam title in 2025.Keys, 31 and the No.

22 seed, also stumbled into lows like last year, when she lost in the first round after committing 89 unforced errors and battling nerves.And that made Tuesday — her straight-sets win over unseeded Alina Korneeva — significant as her quest for her first U.S.

Open title continues, since “it’s always hard to come back to a place where you last played and it was a tough loss.” “I think that today is obviously tough,” Keys said, “because you go back on the court where you had a really tough loss and to go back out and play another first round, it’s always hard.To have that kind of lingering memory is tough.” Keys didn’t recall how long it took to shake the lingering sting of the loss last year to Mexico’s Renata Zarazua.

She just forgot about it.And Keys, who has been transparent about her mental health and battling nerves in the past, said that she still feels the tension ahead of Grand Slam tournaments and recently spoke with Jessica Pegula about it. Following her upset last year, Keys generated runs in the first three Grand Slam tournaments of 2026 — falling in the Round of 16 at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the French Open — and won the Eastbourne Open.

But as she hit a milestone for U.S.Open appearances, an absence on her tennis résumé remains, and another run at Flushing Meadows could change that. The tenor of wo...