I can’t keep track of the number of times I felt convinced that Madison Keys was doomed.

Late in the third set of her Australian Open semifinal, she fell into a 0–40 hole in two different service games (and got broken once); she was down match point while returning serve at 5–6; she spent much of the decisive tiebreak trailing by a mini-break. And her opponent, Iga Swiatek, has never been one to flinch. In the five matches leading into this semifinal, Swiatek had lost an average of 1.4 games per set. She had been stamping out any signs of life; I’d mentally already written her into the final. Keys had managed to blitz her the second set, but the third set was looking far dicier.

Okay, if I’m keeping it real, keeping Melbourne hours is an imperfect art, and I was falling in and out of consciousness throughout the third set. I only watched the replay the next day after I already knew the result. So it was more a matter of how rather than if she won. And the how just kept eluding me. Watching the replay, I thought she would lose, even though I knew she had won. A Swiatek double fault there, a hard-won rally there—little hints of it. But the Keys win never felt plausible until I was watching them shake hands at the net.

Once the confusion faded and I looked back at the entirety of the 5–7, 6–1, 7–6(8) match, however, it was clear that this was the single best performance I’d ever witnessed from Keys. She’s a talented player who has nevertheless digested a lot of disappointment deep in these major tournaments. I attended her puzzling semifinal against Aryna Sabalenka in the 2023 U.S. Open, a match where she won the first set 6–0, served for the match in the second set, and even led by a break in the third set, but still lost. And last year there was pain at Wimbledon: a fourth-round match where she led Jasmine Paolini 5–2 in the third set, only to pick up an acute hamstring injury and retire in tears at 5–5.

This time, against Swiatek, there was no lapse, mental or physical. She barreled onward with signature Madison Keys tennis, which is powerful enough to leave even a defender like Swiatek flat-footed and hopeless. Until now I wasn’t sure that Keys could sustain her flat power against the best players in the world, under this much pressure, without spraying a few too many errors to survive. I watched rallies expecting the third or fourth ball to fly, but here she managed to keep that power under control.

Perhaps some of the credit for that control belongs to a bold offseason racquet change, a story laid out wonderfully by our friend Ben Rothenberg at Bounces. Keys had been playing with a Wilson racquet since she was a kid, but switched to a Yonex on the counsel of her husband-slash-coach, Bjorn Fratangelo, and despite the skepticism of her agent. Hoping she’d use equipment that was easier on her body, Fratangelo also got her to abandon her natural gut strings. With this new setup she noticed her wrist pain went away and the balls all started landing in. She hasn’t officially signed a deal with Yonex, but her performance at this tournament must be making any eventual contract that much sweeter. As for why the racquet works so well for her: “So to be totally honest, I have no idea why I like this racquet,” Keys told Rothenberg. I’ve always admired how players, even the well-spoken ones, can be quite numinous and vibe-y when discussing their racquet specs. Words are for us nerds; for the ones who can actually do the thing, at that level, all that matters is the feel.

Ten years ago, Keys was a teenager, making her first major semifinal at this tournament, setting expectations aggressively high and not quite meeting them. Now, at 29, her mind is open enough to experiment with the biggest variable in her tennis life, and she has been rewarded with her second major final appearance. She has dispatched a slate of seeded opponents like Danielle Collins, Elena Rybakina, Elina Svitolina. If this Swiatek match was the best match she’s ever played, she’ll need to order another one of those. Her opponent in the final is one of the few opponents who can match her power and even surpass it as needed: Aryna Sabalenka, hunting for an Australian Open three-peat. Keys, reflecting on their 2023 U.S. Open semi, said she played it too safe and felt bad. This time, though, she wants to embrace the discomfort of the moment, to play her boldest tennis and walk away without regrets.