Madison Keys disturbs iga Swatek to reach the Australian Open Final against ARYNA SABALLKA

Melbourne, Australia – Madison Keys is in the building.

With women’s tennis on the brink of an epic showdown between the two best players with the Australian Open title at stake, Keys, the 29-year-old American, crashed the party. She stormed back against Iga Swatek to win their semi-final 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (10-8).

Down with 7-8 in the tiebreaket crushed Keys two serve, one of them an ace and a swatek couldn’t return to grab the only match point she needed. She knocked a return and then a Swatek Forehand sail long.

She clenched her fists and screamed, letting the biggest smile for years extend over her cheeks. Amazed she trotted over to the net to give hand and then bent on her knees.

“I’m in the final,” she said on the field when it was over. “It just became who can get the last point and who can be a little bit better than the other. I’m glad it was me.”

Many years ago, people in tennis talked about Keys playing that kind of finals every year. She also thought she would. She was one of the wonderful children who comes every few years and won Tour matches in her early teenage years, her game big and brave and apparently destined for greatness.

That’s not how it went. Saturday night she will play in her first Grand Slam final since her 2017 US Open meeting with Sloane Stephens. Keys lost that day, but she sensed her time would come. Then it didn’t, and it pursued her, especially when she began to fight the inevitable wear that comes with playing a decade or more professional tennis in her mid -20s.

Over the past year, she began to accept that her dream of winning a Grand Slam final, or even having the chance to play for someone else, may not come again. She should be ok with that opportunity, especially with Swatek standing in her way for her Thursday night at Rod Laver Arena.

Swatek was aiming to play for a Grand Slam title somewhere other than Roland Garros’ red clay in Paris for the first time in more than two years, but she couldn’t overcome an hour of uncharacteristly flawed tennis and a sustained wave from keys topped through The whole match and then went stratospheric when it meant the most.

Swatek, the five-time Grand Slam champion and one-time-and-mow-future world # 1, had only suffered from the relentless effectiveness of his other five wins over the fourteen days. A battle that always felt as if it would be Swiatek to lose, it was after she was through a dive that lasted throughout the second set. It was characterized by rushed forhand and preliminary backhand, especially down the line that couldn’t find the track or find their way over the net.

In the end, it was Keys’ gravel that made the difference. Serving at 4-4 in the third set, Keys fought back from 0-40 and averted four breakpoints, any of which would have given Swatek the chance to serve the match. When Swatek paused and served to the match at 6-5, Keys found a clutch forhand wins into the stamp and a return deep to Swatek’s laces to turn the game and earn a double mistake that sent the match in a 10-point tiebreak.

Nevertheless, when it was over, Swatek had lost only 31 games across six games at the first Grand Slam of the year, which mostly showed a level of dominance that has always been missing in her game in the sport’s biggest events except for the French Open. Her Groundstrokes has the spin and margin that disappeared in her defeat in 2024, and those qualities almost took her to the final as she served the 5-5 break in the third with a controlled but aggressive recurring view. Some new tools, including a greater willingness to volley and come forward, had her on the edge of the tiebreaket. She came out of a match against a Redlining Power player on a tough track with a closed roof, and felt disappointed to be a good first weave away from the victory. It wasn’t on the cards so long ago.

But in Keys, 29, she faced a dangerous and talented, free-swinger, who has been on this stage before, both in Australia and at the US Open, where she was a finalist in 2017. Keys would always play aggressively and take the fight to Swatek. The question was whether she could execute during a three -set match, or whether the mistakes that come with the territory of her cracking base would seep.

It turned out she didn’t care, because that wasn’t the point.

Two years ago, in her last Grand Slam semi-final at the US Open 2023, she went off the field filled with regret over having played for the time being as the match was at stake. Thursday night to Friday morning, when she let Swatek go ahead, she struck enough to find big winners when they really meant something. The first time she held a lead in Match Tiebreak was 9-8.

So where did this come from?

Sitting on a bench in Melbourne Park on Wednesday afternoon, Keys thought loudly in a half -glass way on the advantage of playing a version of Swiatek that looked as good as it can be, at least somewhere than Roland Garros.

Her thoughts went back to the dream of winning a grand slam and how it was never far from her thoughts.

“Suddenly you’re in the semi -finals and it’s like, ‘OK, if I get past this match, it’s the final and then you play for something’,” she said. “I have reached this point because I have done a really good job of being focused only on the fight directly in front of me and worry about it.”

She paused for a moment and hovered through the idea of ​​playing Swatek. Just like that, the concept of consequences disappeared, one of the old banana peels that had previously killed her.

At her press conference, she said she had no idea what the result was at the critical times.

She only thought of one thing: “Just try to get the next point.”

Then she won the night’s 211. Point and the 18th in Tiebreak, and the chair judge told her she didn’t have to win another one.

On Saturday, she will try to win a lot more, against the world’s # 1 and twice defending champion, with the chance to win a first Grand Slam title.

(Topfoto: David Gray / AFP via Getty Images)