Madison Keys has admitted that her ‘paralyzing’ nerves cost her the match in the first round at the US Open.
The Australian Open champion suffered a shock defeat to Renata Zarazua in a brutal opening round match.
Both players split the first two sets on tiebreaks before Zarazua took the deciding set 7-5 to seal a shock exit for Keys at the US Open.
After the match Keys admitted her nerves were ‘paralyzing’ and spoke about how emotions had been building for a while, “I feel like today I was just, for the first time in a while, where my nerves really got the better of me, and it kind of became a little bit paralyzing,” Keys explained in her press conference.
“I felt like I was just slow, I wasn’t seeing things the way that I wanted to, which I feel like resulted in a lot of bad decisions and lazy footwork. So I feel like that’s kind of the summary. I think it was probably building a little bit. The reality is it usually builds a little bit. You always kind of feel first-round jitters, and as the day is getting closer, feeling a little bit more and more nervous.
“But I feel like for whatever reason, today I just couldn’t separate myself from the, I guess — and it’s more than just saying, I want to win, but just feeling like winning matters just way too much, and I just couldn’t quite separate myself from that. Then once you start playing badly, it just kind of all snowballs.”
Since winning the Australian Open, it’s been an overwhelming season for Keys who has had to adapt to emerging high expectations.
The amount of matches have ultimately played its part in Keys’ rather flat end to the season as she detailed after the match, “I think the difficult part of sports is that you can’t ever recreate a scenario as hard as we try to,” Keys said after the match.
“And I had, you know, a lot of time at home, training, like, I just had a really great offseason where I was able to build, have a base, not only on the court but mentally. I feel like as the year has gone on and on and on, there’s been a lot of matches, there hasn’t been a lot of time to actually reset and have training blocks and just have time where you’re not competing to really kind of get back to life and, like, the real balance of it all.
“So I feel like it was a lot easier at the beginning of the year, because it’s the start of the year, everything is fresh. And now I feel like there’s been moments where you’ve been on the road longer, you’ve played a lot of matches, you haven’t had a lot of days off. Those are kind of the days where things are just a little bit harder. I think that those are kind of the times when your bad habits are the ones that kind of rear their head.”
Keys will be hoping for a slightly more positive end to the season as she chases a spot in the WTA Finals in Riyadh at the end of the season.
