ROLAND GARROS

June 2, 2025

Madison Keys

Press Conference

M. KEYS/H. Baptiste

6-3, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: Maddie, congratulations. Into your second consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. Just give us your thoughts on the match and also your opponent's play today.

MADISON KEYS: Really happy with my play today. Hailey, I think, is a fantastic tennis player. I knew kind of going into the match that I was going to have to kind of up my level and any opportunity that I could just try to capitalize on it.

Overall, really happy with the win and excited for the next round.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. I was wondering, do you feel like you're playing with house money after you saved those three match points, or when you look at the draw, was it a little bit more pressure today because you were such a clear favorite?

MADISON KEYS: Definitely still happy to be here. Things were as close as they could have been to being gone as possible. I think you play a little bit freer when you know that, but also, huge opportunity today to kind of get through that and make another quarterfinal here.

So a little bit of both. A little bit thankful that I'm still in the tournament, but also kind of just knowing the opportunity that I had today, wanting to go out and play really solid and make sure that I took advantage of that.

Q. Do you feel like a different player at majors? I think we talk about this more with the men because they play best-of-five at majors instead of the normal best-of-three in women's. The same format now, especially with the tiebreaks and everything now, but do you feel you're a different sort of level of reliable, good player at majors than maybe day to day elsewhere? It seems like you manage to peak at these events pretty consistently.

MADISON KEYS: I think I have kind of 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.

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 (smiling).

Q. Any idea why that is? Everyone wants to do well at the majors, but you actually do.

MADISON KEYS: I don't know. I think I have just always kind of put a lot of emphasis on it and really kind of just buckled down.

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.

Q. How much of your success do you chalk up to sort of like nuts-and-bolts things, like shot selection and improvement on forehand and different serves and stuff like that, and how much do you chalk up to improvement in intangibles and the way you're thinking, your psychology and mental approach, to just tennis in general and also obviously big events like this?

MADISON KEYS: I think it's hard to quantify one thing or say it's more one thing or the other. I think my mentality has really helped make more good decisions in big points, but I also think that it's kind of forced me to continue to play my way. I think in the past I would maybe get a little bit more tentative and kind of play a little bit more defensively in big moments, and now trying to make the push to continue to play the way that I was playing in order to get up in scores.

But then at the same time, I think adding in the slice has helped a lot, change pace and keep me in rallies. I think it's kind of just a little bit of everything.

Q. I'd like to ask you to look ahead, if you could, to your next match. The two of you have played several times. If could you look ahead to that, what do you think for you will be the key to win that match?

MADISON KEYS: I think Coco is obviously pretty dominant on clay. I would say it's probably her best surface to play on. It's obviously a big challenge.

I think for me it's going to be a lot about trying to balance going after things, but knowing with her ability to cover the court, you're going to have to win the point multiple times before it's actually over.

So I think that's always one of the trickier things when you're playing someone who moves as well as she does. Then you also have the threat against her of if at any point you kind of lose control of the point, she's going to be the aggressor.

So I think the biggest thing is the balance of going for things, but with enough margin that it's a repeatable ball, shot after shot.

Q. Are you somebody who prefers to play somebody that you have a lot of experience against? I think this will be your sixth matchup between the two of you. Or do you prefer playing somebody who maybe hasn't seen you play? Obviously you haven't played against them too, but maybe you feel as though you have an advantage if it's somebody who is not used to dealing with what you present on court.

MADISON KEYS: I think that at this point it's pretty rare to play someone you haven't played against, so in some ways it's almost exciting just because it's someone new that you haven't gone up against, but it happens so rarely that more often than not you don't really have the opportunity to prefer one thing or the other.

I think when you have played someone so many times, sometimes it's hard because you start analyzing everything, and you know they're doing the same thing. So I think sometimes you go out expecting maybe something completely different than you have ever seen, but a lot of times I feel like it's very similar matches, and it's just who's executing better that day.

Q. Jessica Pegula, she said that she has had a little bit of tough time in this clay court swing because it's pretty long, and you have to stay away from your home, and especially this year it's two weeks back to back, the tournament. So I was wondering, how did you feel? How did you handle the kind of rough schedule?

MADISON KEYS: I actually went home after I lost early in Rome. So in some ways I think it was a blessing in disguise for me, because I was able to go home for a little over a week. That really helped just reset my trip, and coming back to Paris it felt like it was a whole new trip.

It gets very long. Last year, even not playing the -- I guess last year was also two weeks, but staying over and playing Strasbourg, by the time I got to Roland Garros, I was pretty crispy and ready to go home.

So it's definitely really hard, and I think the difference of this swing versus the kind of spring swing is that there is not a Grand Slam at the end of it. So it's definitely a hard thing to balance, but looking back, maybe a good thing that I lost early in Rome.

Q. It really hasn't been automatic for major winners, especially first-time major winners, to have a good result at their next major. Whenever it is, a lot of them lose early. How have you been able to process that? This is the biggest gap between the two majors between Australia and France, if that helps on the calendar to reset, or if you feel it's taken as a positive or it's been irrelevant to your run here? Making a quarter is a relatively high bar that a lot of people don't clear even.

MADISON KEYS: I think it's been good for me to have the time in between. Just it's allowed me more time to kind of process and reset and figure things out and then get back out there.

So I think I have definitely taken advantage of the fact that I have had a few months to kind of recalibrate.

Q. I don't know whether this is an easy question or not, but you and Coco, different ages, but you're from the same state, in the same trade. You know each other well. Can you just talk about her and your relationship, the energy, and how you have been interacting? Any good stories, anything like that?

MADISON KEYS: I remember meeting Coco for the first time, and in my head she was, like, 9 years old. She probably wasn't that young, but she was so young and not even on the pro tour yet. And just kind of watching her play, I knew that she was going to be someone that was going to be pretty dominant pretty quickly.

She just carried herself with such poise, for as young as she is. Even to this day, I'm always so impressed by the way that she handles the pressure and all of it at such a young age. It's one of the things that I think she had done a phenomenal job at.

It's been really fun kind of getting to see her do so well at such a young age. Sometimes I feel very old when talking to Coco, because she says things, and I'm, like, Yeah, I don't get that (smiling). So there's definitely a big age gap that is sometimes shockingly obvious.

Q. Just to clarify one thing and then ask the question, when you talked about having to win the point like four times against Coco, is that just accentuated, I would imagine, on the red clay?

MADISON KEYS: Yes.

Q. And then when you are either with or watching or playing Coco, is there flashbacks to when you were that age and had a ton of, like, attention and promise and pressure on you and people talking about you and just sort of, like, I don't know, I don't know if "nostalgic" is the wrong word, but do you have that sensation ever?

MADISON KEYS: I think I'm always just really impressed with the fact that she handles it so well, because she's had even more success and more media attention than I had, and I know that it was definitely really hard for me at times to handle it.

I feel like you watch her, and she just takes it all in stride and continues to just be 100% her, and I'm always just really impressed by it.

Q. For a couple days now the juniors are here... speaking of you at a young age... and everybody is so full of aspirations and hopes and wants to be there where you are. Is there one piece of advice you could give the better players there? Maybe forget about it and just let everything come? Is there any kind of advice you would give them?

MADISON KEYS: I think the biggest thing is that there's a lot of pressure to kind of immediately make it when you're a top junior, and I think sometimes you kind of lose the fun of all of it and all of the just amazing experience that you get to have through being a professional tennis player.

And I think the biggest thing from all of it is that it's really never too late. 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.

So there is really no time limit, and I think a lot of us, as time goes by, and we haven't gotten it, haven't gotten it, feels like time is running away.

So I think there is no time limit. Anything can happen at any moment.