American tennis star Madison Keys upset No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka to win the Australian Open on Saturday.
Keys, 29, won 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 in the tightly contested match to win her first-ever Grand Slam tournament.
Keys finished with just one more point won than Sabalenka overall, winning 92 points, compared to Sabalenka’s 91.
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Sabalenka was seeking to win her third consecutive Australian Open, something that was last achieved — by Martina Hingis — from 1997 through 1999.
This was the second time in Keys’ career that she had a chance at a major title, her last being a 6-3, 6-0 loss to fellow countrywoman Sloane Stephens in the 2017 US Open.
Keys had high expectations for herself in her tennis career, but began to accept the fact that she might never win a Grand Slam title.
“From a pretty young age, I felt like if I never won a Grand Slam, then I wouldn’t have lived up to what people thought I should have been. That was a pretty heavy burden to kind of carry around,” Keys said.
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“So I finally got to the point where I was proud of myself and proud of my career, with or without a Grand Slam. I finally got to the point where I was OK if it didn’t happen. I didn’t need it to feel like I had a good career or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player.
“I feel like finally letting go of that kind of internal talk that I had just gave me the ability to actually go out and play some really good tennis to actually win a Grand Slam.”
Not only did Keys upset the No.1 ranked Sabalenka, but she also took down No. 2 ranked Iga Świątek in the semifinals en route to her Australian Open title victory.
Keys was the first woman since Serena Williams in 2005 to defeat both of the WTA’s top two players at Melbourne Park. She said that beating Swiatek gave her the confidence she could win against Sabalenka.
“Winning that match the other night against Iga was really kind of a big hurdle,” Keys said. “I always believed that I could do it, but to do it that way — really I thought to myself after the match that I can absolutely win on Saturday.”
This was Keys 46th Slam appearance, the third most before winning a women’s major title, being only Flavia Pennetta’s 49 and Marion Bartoli’s 47 appearances before they won.
“I didn’t always believe that I could get back to this point. But to be able to do it and win, it means the world to me.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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