World
Be brave. That's what Madison Keys kept telling herself on the way to winning the Australian Open
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Be brave.
Go for it.
Those were the mantras Madison Keys turned to as she confronted the most significant points of her tennis career, trapped in the cauldron of a third set that was tied at 5-all, 30-all in the Australian Open final against two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday.
No reason to be anything but aggressive now, Keys thought. No reason to try to wish there weren’t nerves accompanying the moment. No reason to worry — as the American long did along the journey from prodigy at age 12 to major champion less than a month before her 30th birthday — about what would happen if things didn’t quite work out.
“I just kept saying, ‘Be brave.’ And, ‘Go for it.’ I kind of just kept repeating that. That was really my goal for the day — to just be proud, no matter a win or a loss,” Keys said in an interview with The Associated Press after winning her first Grand Slam title with a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory over the No. 1-ranked Sabalenka in Rod Laver Arena.
“I went after it, every single point. And if I missed it and I just didn’t execute, I could live with that. I didn’t want to have any sort of regret that I was passive and I missed. (Then) it could have been something where I thought: ‘I should have done something else,’” Keys said, her hands clasped as she recalled what transpired about two hours earlier. “So I kind of just kept saying that, over and over.”
She spread the credit for her achievement. To the team around her, including Bjorn Fratangelo, a former player who has been her partner for years, her coach since mid-2023 and her husband since November. To her therapist, with whom she spoke or texted frequently over the past two weeks. To her friends on tour who lifted her up when she needed it.
They all believed in Keys, she said, and now, lately, she believed in herself, too.
At her post-match news conference, Keys discussed at length the ways in which her outlook changed.
She used to be concerned about never living up to the hype that accompanied her from before she was even a teen and only increased when she made her first appearance in a Grand Slam semifinal at Melbourne Park at age 19 (she lost to Serena Williams). She used to think nothing about her tennis career would matter if she never managed to claim a major trophy. She used to assume the sport’s best never felt jitters like those hampering her during her first Grand Slam final at the U.S. Open at age 22 ( she lost to Sloane Stephens ).
Eventually, Keys let all of that go. It was OK not to obsess over others’ opinions. It was OK if she never won a Slam. It was OK to face the nerves, because, after all, that’s how the greats succeed — they feel discomfort but play through it.
“I was nervous my entire career. So is Novak (Djokovic). So was Roger (Federer). Everybody has been,” Fratangelo, a former player who looked on with reddened eyes as Keys accepted her trophy, said during the tournament. “It’s just how you deal with it. And she’s starting to deal with it in a better way.”
That was the case throughout her run, which featured five three-setters and four victories over top-10 seeds (No. 1 Sabalenka, No. 2 Iga Swiatek, No. 6 Elena Rybakina and No. 10 Danielle Collins ), including a trio of major champs (Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina). No woman had defeated the top two players in the WTA rankings during one major since 2009.
Swiatek used the word “brave” to describe the ways Keys played while saving a match point before coming through in their final-set tiebreaker.
“To do it that way,” Keys said at her news conference, “I think, really, I thought to myself after the match that I can absolutely win on Saturday.”
She was so good at the start and down the stretch against Sabalenka.
From 5-all, 30-all, Keys claimed six of the last eight points. She hammered first-strike forehand winners on consecutive points to hold serve, then earned the lone break of the third set, closing it out with — fittingly — yet another forehand winner.
“If she can play consistently like that, I mean, it’s not much you can do,” Sabalenka said.
Keys was brave.
She went for it.
“My first semifinal here feels like it was forever ago. I mean, I honestly felt like I was a different person then. But I think that that kind of happens when so many things have happened throughout the past decade,” Keys told the AP. “It’s just kind of all accumulated to get to the point where I was finally able to just go out and play some really good tennis and walk away with a Grand Slam.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Some Australians were in no mood to celebrate the country’s national day on Sunday because they had long seen it as a reminder of colonial oppression. A few protesters took that antipathy a step further — by vandalizing statues to British settlers and an English king.
The damage done in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra was a fresh sign that Australia Day, which commemorates when a British fleet sailed into Sydney Harbor to start a penal colony in the late 18th century, remains divisive.
Even as some Australians mark the holiday with barbecues and pool parties, critics note that it set in motion centuries of oppression of Indigenous people. Some prefer to call it Invasion Day or Survival Day, and they make their displeasure clear through protests or other actions.
In Sydney this week, a statue of Captain James Cook, who claimed part of the Australian continent for the British crown in 1770, was drenched in red paint. Its hand and nose were severed, too. The statue had been restored after facing a similar attack last year.
In Melbourne, a monument to John Batman, an explorer who settled the city on lands occupied by Aboriginal people, was toppled and destroyed early Saturday. Protesters in Melbourne also spray-painted the words “land back” on a memorial for Australian soldiers who died fighting in World War I.
And on Sunday in Canberra, the capital, there was graffiti on a statue of King George V. “The colony is falling,” someone had written on its base in red paint.
Australian officials condemned the vandalism.
“We should find it in our hearts and in our minds to respect differences of views but not let it turn ugly,” said Jacinta Allan, the state premier of Victoria, according to a report by the television station 9News.
Representatives for the police in the states of Victoria and New South Wales said on Sunday afternoon that there had been no arrests or charges in connection with the vandalism in Sydney and Melbourne. The police in Canberra did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
People have protested Australia Day for decades. Recent protests were bolstered by the global Black Lives Matter movement, in which people in the United States, Britain and elsewhere toppled statues they saw as symbols of racism and oppression.
Last year in Melbourne, a Captain Cook statue was sawed off at the ankles, and a monument to King George V was beheaded.
Many Australian officials are keenly aware of their country’s racist colonial past, and they’re not afraid to say so publicly. In one example, the City of Melbourne’s website has a section on “truth-telling” that talks about developing “a shared understanding of the impacts of colonization and dispossession on Aboriginal peoples.”
But merely acknowledging historical wrongs is not enough for some Indigenous activists. That was clear when King Charles III visited Australia last year.
“You are not our king,” a voice rang out shortly after Charles, who retains the ceremonial title of head of state in the former British colony, finished addressing Parliament. “Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us.”
The voice belonged to Lidia Thorpe, an Indigenous senator and activist for Aboriginal rights. As security guards hustled her out of the chamber, she accused British colonizers of genocide and demanded that Britain enter into a treaty with Australia’s Indigenous population.
The king watched impassively from the stage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Sunday that an agreement has been reached with Hamas to release additional hostages starting this Thursday, while also allowing Palestinians to return to the northern part of the Gaza Strip beginning Monday morning.
Qatar helped mediate the agreement, which is expected to ease the first major crisis of the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
“After firm and determined negotiations led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Hamas has backed down and will conduct an additional phase of hostage releases this coming Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said. “As part of this phase, Israeli citizen Arbel Yehud, soldier Agam Berger, and one additional hostage will be released.”
The statement also noted that three additional hostages will be released on Saturday as part of the agreement.
ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF STEPS DOWN OVER OCTOBER 7 HAMAS MASSACRE: ‘WEIGHS ON ME EVERY DAY’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel and Hamas reached an agreement for the release of additional hostages and for Palestinians to return to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. (Getty Images)
Israel confirmed Hamas handed over a list that specified the condition of the hostages expected to be released in the first stage. Local media also reported the list specified the number of living and dead hostages, though names were not included.
Israeli officials claim most of the 26 remaining hostages are alive, which coincides with the list Hamas provided.
Netanyahu’s office also said Israel will allow Palestinians to return to the northern part of the Gaza Strip beginning Monday morning under the agreement with Hamas.
CEASEFIRE DISPUTES BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH THROW REGION INTO TURMOIL
Hamas is believed to be holding 26 hostages, as of Sunday. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo)
Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will not tolerate any violation of the agreement between the two parties, adding that he will continue to push for the return of all hostages, dead or alive.
Likewise, the White House released a statement on Sunday afternoon saying the arrangement between Israel and Lebanon will be monitored by the U.S. and will remain in effect until Feb. 18, 2025.
“The Government of Lebanon, the Government of Israel, and the Government of the United States will also begin negotiations for the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023,” the statement read.
HAMAS RELEASES 4 FEMALE HOSTAGES AS PART OF ISRAEL CEASEFIRE
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on July 26. (Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO) / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The agreement between Israel and Hamas comes after the former accused the latter of changing the order of hostages it had planned to release. As a result, Israeli forces blocked thousands of Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza.
Israeli forces also announced Friday that they would not withdraw from southern Lebanon as the ceasefire requires until the Lebanese government fully implements its own responsibilities. According to the agreement, both groups were expected to make withdrawals by Sunday.
“IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots to remove threats in a number of areas where suspects were identified approaching the troops,” the IDF wrote in a statement earlier Sunday.
BITTERSWEET REJOICING AS FIRST HOSTAGES RETURN TO ISRAEL AFTER 471 DAYS IN CAPTIVITY
President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate back in July. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The disputes came just after President Donald Trump called for Egypt and Jordan to accept refugees from Gaza to “clean out” the region.
“I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”
Trump said he applauded Jordan for accepting Palestinian refugees but that he told the king: “I’d love for you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
A submarine cable was damaged in the Baltic Sea, the fourth case reported by the Nordic countries in the past two months. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasised, “The resilience and security of our infrastructure is a top priority.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson reported that at least one undersea cable connecting Sweden and Latvia has been damaged. This incident follows similar cases reported in the past two months between Lithuania and Sweden, Germany and Finland, and Estonia and Finland.
“There is information suggesting that at least one data cable between Sweden and Latvia has been damaged in the Baltic Sea. The cable is owned by a Latvian entity. I have been in close contact with Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina throughout the day,” Kristersson wrote on X.
On 14 January, from Helsinki, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced that the Alliance would launch a new mission in the Baltic with new ships and dedicated aviation and new supporting technology, including ‘a small fleet of undersea drones’, to protect critical infrastructure from sabotage.
von der Leyen: ‘Full solidarity with the countries bordering the Baltic Sea’
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed strong solidarity with the EU countries bordering the Baltic Sea following the damage to an undersea data cable between Sweden and Latvia. Von der Leyen emphasised the importance of securing critical infrastructure, stating, “The resilience and security of our critical infrastructure is a top priority.” She further reaffirmed the EU Commission’s commitment to enhancing detection, prevention, and repair efforts in collaboration with global partners.
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