The veteran discusses how she’s trying to appreciate and enjoy her career more in her 30s as she competes in her first WTA Finals in nine years.
Each year, the WTA Finals gathers the top eight women’s tennis players each year for a round-robin tournament with $15.5 million in prize money up for grabs this week in Saudi Arabia. Madison Keys first reached this tentpole event in 2016 when she was 21, thinking she’d return on an annual basis.
It took her nine more years to get back.
The world’s No. 7 player has had a milestone 2025, winning her first career Grand Slam at the Australian Open, achieving her career-high ranking of No. 5, and taking home more than $4 million in prize money to date. And now that she’s back at the Finals, Keys is making sure not to take this momentous achievement for granted.
“I don’t think that I had the opportunity to fully embrace the opportunity,” Keys told Boardroom last week about her first appearance. “And now, having that gap in between, I definitely have a lot of more perspective for it.”
The last time we spoke, Keys had just won in Australia and credited a shift in her mental approach to helping her win in Melbourne less than a month before her 30th birthday. It’s something she said she’s continued working on since then, with new curveballs thrown her way now that she’s a grand slam champion and not just a top 10-15 player. She’s received more media attention and new external and internal pressure to contend at every tournament she enters.
“I felt like for a long time I lived under the radar a bit,” Keys said, “so being back in the spotlight was something that I had to get used to again. But in a lot of ways it’s been fun for me because at this point in my career, I haven’t had many new experiences.”
She felt like she never took the time to pat herself on the back and enjoy the accomplishment when she first made it at 21 in Singapore. Taking a step back and trying to enjoy the journey is something Keys said she has tried to prioritize over the last couple of years. That’s meant saying yes to more of what life on tour has to offer — going out to dinner, exploring the city, and taking in the local sights instead of staying holed up in her hotel room because she doesn’t want to risk being tired when she plays the next day.
Keys no longer wants to leave a tournament city without actually experiencing it.
“It’s easy for tennis to become your entire life,” she said.
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As Keys headed to the US Open seeded sixth, she fell to 82nd-ranked Renata Zarazua in the first round, one of the tournament’s biggest upsets. The loss, she said, made her take a step back and really evaluate how things were going and where she could make some improvements in order to qualify for Riyadh.
“It’s one of those things where I really was as disappointed as one could imagine,” Keys said, “but it was a moment where I got a second to reset and refocus.”
While Keys was clinching her spot in the finals, she also started co-hosting a new podcast called The Players Box with fellow American tennis vets Jessica Pegula, Jennifer Brady, and Desirae Krawczyk on their lives off the court, traveling the world and chronicling the less glamorous aspects of their lives. What started as a spirited group chat evolved when they saw American men’s players Sam Querrey, John Isner, Steve Johnson, and Jack Sock start their Nothing Major podcast. They encouraged the ladies to give podcasting a shot, and Keys has thoroughly enjoyed it.
Once they figure out a good time to record each week after sorting out different time zones and match schedules, Keys wants to model The Players Box after the hit comedy podcast Giggly Squad, which doesn’t try to take itself too seriously.
“People want to hear the actual real behind the scenes and what we’re going through,” Keys said. “Some people think that we live these glamorous lives, so it’s kind of funny when we get to talk about our epic fail travel days.”
As she competes in the finals, Keys is trying to be conscious of not getting ahead of herself and thinking about next year. She’s made it a point to remind herself how far she’s come and how hard she’s worked. As she fully dives into her 30s, Keys is trying to appreciate the journey more after reaching the destination she thought she might never return to.
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