Madison Keys Collects Record Haul

Madison Keys picked up her first Grand Slam title win Saturday, beating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the Australian Open final.

The Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup comes with a record-breaking $2.2 million dollar prize (3.5 million Australian dollars). The Australian Open increased its prize money pool by roughly 11 percent ahead of this year’s event, though its top payout still ranks below what was offered at each of the other three Grand Slam events in 2024.

Keys’s victory pushes her career prize haul to more than $21 million, according to the Women’s Tennis Association’s accounting, including $170,815 earned already during the nascent 2025 season.

Keys entered the Australian Open as the No. 19 seed but riding a hot hand after winning the Adelaide International on Jan. 11.

Her biggest success has been a long time coming. Keys made her professional debut in 2009 at the age of 14, after moving with her mother from Illinois to Florida as a 10-year-old to train at the Evert Tennis Academy.

She drew attention on tour with a victory at the U.S. Open as a 16-year-old in 2011, and then reached her first Grand Slam final in New York in 2017. But after losing in straight sets that day, she struggled to return to tennis’ top stages.

She beat three Grand Slam winners in Australia, including world No. 2 Iga Swiatek before besting Sabalenka. Keys grabbed the first set 6-3, dropped the second 2-6, and then held on for a 7-5 win in the final round’s final set, claiming the victory with a forehand winner on her second championship point.

She embraced her husband and coach Bjorn Fratangelo, a former pro himself, shortly after winning the match.

“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,” Keys said during a postmatch press conference. “That was a pretty heavy burden to kind of carry around.”

A month shy of 30, Keys became the oldest first-time women’s singles major champion since 33-year-old Flavia Pennetta in 2015. No American man or woman has been older at the time of their first singles Grand Slam event triumph. With the victory, Keys will also match her career high as the seventh-ranked WTA player, a spot she first achieved in 2016. Four U.S. women now sit inside the top 10.

“I have wanted this for so long,” Keys said after her victory, “and I didn’t know if I was ever going to get back to this position.”

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