‘It helped me be free': Madison Keys on therapy, America and her husband as coach

The Guardian

a day ago

Before she won her first grand slam tournament at the Australian Open in January, Madison Keys had spent more than a year talking to a therapist about her life rather than just her tennis career. 'When I'd gone to see sports psychologists in the past it had been a little tunnel-focused on routines and big moments on the court,' she says on a sleepy Sunday afternoon in London. 'So being able to talk to someone about broader life philosophies helped me get to the root of why I was feeling that way instead of just being uber-focused on decisive moments in a match.'
The 30-year-old American, who is ready for another tilt at Wimbledon, remembers some of the wayward suggestions that specialist sports psychiatrists would advise her to follow at crucial stages of a match.
'It would be, like: 'Make sure you look at your strings and do this specific thing and that'll just help the nerves go away.''
Keys pauses when I ask if it was hard to open up to a stranger about her deeper and usually more hidden emotions during a therapy session. 'I don't know if I would say that was hard,' she replies. 'It was more that I was actually trying to be honest with myself about what I felt. There were a lot of instances where I would say something and I was surprised that's actually how I felt. Those are the kind of things that live in the back of your head you don't ever really pay attention to.'
She still talks to the same therapist and says: 'One of the biggest things I've learned about myself is that, because of our sport, and our constant striving to be better, there's always something else [to do]. Sometimes you don't really take a moment to acknowledge how you feel or think about what's going on inside. You just put your head down and keep going into the next thing. At some point that catches up with you and so it was really important for me to learn how to actually just sit and be introspective and figure out what I was feeling and why. And then just being OK with that and not immediately trying to fix it and make it go away.'
The best tennis players are so consumed by their careers, and life on tour, that it often seems as if their true selves, as people, are forgotten. Did Keys become better at separating her personal identity from her tennis-playing persona? 'I was able to do it more, but there are times when it feels like you've figured it out and things are great only for you to find it's not so simple.
'The hardest part about focusing on your mental health is that you've never done it [completely]. It's never box-checked off, so it's something I'll have to continue to be conscious of, because it's easy to fall into bad habits.'
Keys faced a difficult draw in Melbourne and had to win five three-set matches, beating four opponents in the top 10, including Iga Swiatek, world No 2 at the time, in an epic semi-final, and then the world No 1, Aryna Sabalenka. She survived a match point against Swiatek and was pushed to the brink by Sabalenka before winning 7-5 in the third set. 'I was most proud of how I took every round just as that round,' Keys says. 'I was so focused and never got ahead of myself. Playing all these hard matches against top players really allowed me to focus and keep persevering. The fact that I played so many three-setters and was able to hold the trophy at the end of the two weeks was amazing.'
Eight years had passed since her only previous slam final when, at the 2017 US Open, she was crushed 6-3, 6-0 by her friend Sloane Stephens. The pressure of the occasion had been too much against Stephens and, in Melbourne, Keys said: 'I've obviously thought of that match endlessly for the past eight years.' So, did her recent therapy help in those clutch moments of her first slam victory? 'It helped me be a lot more free and have a clear mind in the moment,' Keys confirms. 'I was able to force myself to be a little braver in those moments instead of being careful and tentative, and just go for it. It got to the point where a lot of the time you'd rather be brave. Maybe things don't go exactly how you want but you did them on your terms and you feel you have no regrets, versus if you're a little tentative or trying to be careful and it doesn't work out. That's when you really have regret.'
That regret had also been felt acutely in the semi-finals of the 2023 US Open. Keys led Sabalenka 6-0, 5-3 but, rather than maintaining her positivity, she became passive and hesitant and lost the match on successive tie-breaks. 'I don't know if that was the exact moment, but obviously it was a tough loss,' Keys says of what prompted her to seek therapy. 'Being in that position and not to be able to cross a line was definitely a kind of final reminder that: 'Oh yes, maybe there's something that we can work on.''
Keys also switched from using a Wilson racket to the larger Yonex and she tweaked her serve, but she admits that, apart from working on her mind, the most positive change in the past two years has been the appointment of her husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, as her coach.
'I was struggling when I asked him to help me out,' Keys recalls of the June 2023 move. 'At the time it was supposed to be short term but then we immediately had success. I think the biggest hurdle for him was being comfortable in telling me what to do. That took time to get used to but, now, we're finding our stride.'
Fratangelo was a player who briefly cracked the world top 100 in 2016, but what are his best attributes as a coach? 'He's really great at analysing what's going on [in a match] and he does it so quickly. Coupled with the fact that we obviously know each other very well and know how to communicate, he's able to see some things that I'm not seeing on the court. He then communicates in a way that I can actually do it.'
Keys says that as a couple, away from the court, 'we do a pretty good job of balancing things. When we're home, we're very much home and tennis is off. Home is home and work is work. Sometimes it's harder to do than say but, for the most part, we've done a good job.'
In the French Open this month Keys looked on course for the semi-finals when she won the first set against Coco Gauff. But she crumbled in the third set of an error-strewn match and her fellow American went on to beat Sabalenka in another dramatic final in Paris.
'I was able to watch the last set,' Keys says, 'and it's so amazing for Coco. I thought I could have won our match but nearly beating someone doesn't actually count.'
Keys laughs and then says of Gauff: 'She's playing some great tennis and her clay season was phenomenal. It's obviously disappointing to be so close and then lose to the eventual champion. But at the same time it gives you a lot of confidence.'
Wimbledon is next and it is a tournament where she has reached two quarter-finals. In 2015 she beat Petra Kvitova and Venus Williams before losing to Serena Williams while, eight years later, she lost to Sabalenka in the quarters. Last year was even more painful when, in the fourth round, she was 5-2 up in the third set and two points from victory against Jasmine Paolini.
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'I then tore my hamstring,' Keys says with a grimace. She retired at 5-5 and Paolini went on to make the final. 'Hopefully this is the year I make it past the quarters because Wimbledon has always been something that I dreamed of. It has this aura which means that, I think, for all tennis players it's the tournament.'
It's hard to believe that Keys, a teenage prodigy, has been playing professionally since she was 14. 'I feel every one of those past 16 years,' she says with a groaning kind of laugh.
Staying in Chelsea for a change, Keys reveals: 'I wish I could say I'll be doing some sightseeing but I'd be lying if I feel like that actually might happen. But it's been nice to see a different part of London. I'm notorious for being stuck at Wimbledon all the years I've been here, so it's fun just to be in another part of the city.'
What would she most like to do in London? 'When I'm in a big city I've always really loved doing that touristy bus thing where you can kind of see everything in one trip. If I have an afternoon off that would be the one thing I'd love to do – just hop on a bus and see all of the sights at least once.'
Kindness Wins is the non-profit foundation she set up in 2020 and its very name offers insight into her character and philosophy of life. 'It means a lot to me,' she says, 'because tennis has brought so much into my life and it's opened so many doors for me. I felt it was important to also give kids that opportunity because tennis teaches so many important life lessons. It helps kids learn those in a way where they can be competitive but also a good sport.
'So I wanted to make sure that I did whatever I could to make tennis more accessible for as many people that wanted to play it. Tennis also gives so many opportunities to go to college and meet new people – but it's a really expensive sport. So we try to help.'
The world seems short of kindness right now so how does she feel as an American living under Donald Trump? 'It's definitely a tough time and it's hard to balance where you want to be informed and know what's going on but, at the same time, it's crazy.
'Sometimes it's hard to shut it off enough that you don't pull your hair out but also not being oblivious to what's going on and the realities of everything. It's definitely difficult at the moment.'
Keys smiles ruefully when I say that there are just three and a half more years of Trump's presidency to survive. 'I know. After a few months I was like: 'Oh, it's only been a few weeks!''
At least the first month of Trump's return to the Oval Office also marked her victory at the Australian Open. Keys grins more broadly when I ask if the reality of winning her first grand slam lived up to the dream she had pursued for so long.
'It was great,' she says with another pealing laugh. 'Being able to do it with that group of people around me was really special. So, yes, it was just pretty great.'