Pennetta enjoying Keys' late breakthrough

For many so far advanced in their career, it could have been considered an unusual shift in a late bid to fully realise Keys’ Grand Slam potential before she finally broke through at this year’s Australian Open.

“I think I have typically had pretty good success at the Slams. I think especially early in my career, I was always kind of aiming for the Slams and trying to schedule to peak at the Slams,” Keys said ahead of her Roland-Garros quarter-final against second seed Coco Gauff.

“Funny enough, I think now later, I'm playing way more the week before and things like that. I have kind of shifted my mindset, but I just seem to do well at these two-week events.”

The oldest woman to win their first major since Flavia Pennetta at the 2015 US Open, Keys denied compatriot Hailey Baptiste on Monday for her third Roland-Garros quarter-final – her first since 2019.

It kept the 30-year-old in the hunt to become the first woman since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to claim their first two Slams back-to-back at Melbourne and Paris in the same year.

Pennetta, who famously retired on top after her unexpected triumph at Flushing Meadows almost a decade ago, said while Keys’ game was not as effective on clay, she boasted a different mindset now that boosted her chances.

“Madi's game on clay, she has always had trouble, but the tournament that she played better I think recently was Madrid, even though Madrid is altitude,” Pennetta told rolandgarros.com. “The way she plays though of course she can play amazing, also winning a Grand Slam, it gives you like a different chip in your mind that you can do that.

“When she won the Australian Open this year I was really happy for her because I know at that age it's not easy and she made a big change in her life – her wedding, then winning a championship – so I think she can do that (again) even if in this moment Aryna Sabalenka for me is the one who can do something more here.

“I mean for Madi it was amazing. It was something that I didn’t expect but nobody expected that so it's nice when that happens. It's something that was the same for me, the same thing when I won the US Open.

“I went there with no expectation, nobody was thinking that I can win the tournament, but in the end, match after match I was starting to believe in myself and I think like for her, it was a really big moment.”

While the seventh seed reached the last four in Paris once before back in 2018, the clay-court major was typically her least successful, but after she saved three match points against Sofia Kenin in the third round this week, there was a sense she was playing with house money ahead of her first clay-court clash with Gauff.

It marked the second major in succession she had fought back from match point down, having also done so against Iga Swiatek in the Australian Open semi-finals in January before she went all the way.

That Melbourne Park breakthrough finally put paid to years of therapy and a fresh coaching approach from Fratangelo, a mental release that meant she was at last okay if she never held a Grand Slam trophy.

“I think I have just always kind of put a lot of emphasis on it and really kind of just buckled down,” Keys said.

“Funny enough, it was actually a goal when I started with Bjorn to put more emphasis on all the other weeks and try to have more consistency throughout the season and not just four times a year. So that was something I have actually really worked hard on and tried to do.”

The gap between the season’s opening two majors, Keys felt, worked in her favour, a chance to recalibrate.

Any success at the majors from here on in was a bonus though not as unexpected.

“I obviously had a lot of success earlier in my career and then didn't quite get across the line until a few months ago,” she said.

“So there is really no time limit, and I think a lot of us as time goes by and we haven't gotten it, [can] feel like time is running away. I think there is no time limit. Anything can happen at any moment.”