Tennis - WTA Finals - Riyadh - King Saud University Indoor Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - November 3, 2025 Madison Keys of the U.S. during her group stage match against Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Jan 16 (Reuters) - Madison Keys is soaking up the fun parts of returning to the Australian Open as defending champion and the American said on Friday she is eager to get a photo with her name in the champions' tunnel to send to her mother.
Keys, who captured her first Grand Slam title at the tournament last year, said she was still getting used to the surreal experience of seeing herself immortalised around Melbourne Park.
"There's a really cool photo of me holding the trophy. Getting to see those, it's something you dream of in your career," she told reporters.
"I have not seen my name in the tunnel yet. I hope I can go in there when there's no one else so I can take a picture and send it to my mom.
"I've always remembered walking through that tunnel and seeing all the names and everything. It was a little bit of a pinch-me moment where I was like, 'Wow, I'm going to be up there.'"
The 30-year-old, who beat both world number two Iga Swiatek and number one Aryna Sabalenka in the semis and final last year, acknowledged there was pressure of defending her maiden Grand Slam title but she was also embracing the challenge.
"Even though I've been on tour for a long time, this is also still my first experience as that (defending champion)," she said.
"I'm really trying to just kind of embrace that and take it in and soak it in, because I feel like so often we look back and we regret that, even in the hard moments that were stressful and pressure and all that, we didn't find all the fun parts of it."
Despite her victory last year, Keys said her life really was not that much different.
"It's funny, everyone keeps asking me how my life has changed. It hasn't changed that much, other than I have a really cool trophy at home," she added.
"I have a lot of people that come up to me and tell me winning made them cry. I never thought I would have that ability. I think it's just really been cool as an athlete to have had that impact on so many people."
Ninth seed Keys, who begins her title defence against Ukraine's Oleksandra Oliynykova, said she spent the off-season working on ways to take her out of her comfort zone.
"One of my big goals this year is to force myself to be a little bit uncomfortable on court and try to actually implement some of the things we're working on, as uncomfortable as those are in those big moments," she said.
"That's really just been my goal all off-season, trying to learn new things."
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
