Keys gears up for 2021 on heels of long off-season

Jan 06, 2021
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Keys gears up for 2021 on heels of long off-season

Published Jan 06, 2021

This week, Madison Keys got to be the first guest in the brand new Tennis Channel studio, virtually, of course. She spoke with Steve Weissman and her former coach, Lindsay Davenport, about her off-season, quarantine habits, and the upcoming 2021 season.

"The off-season has been long," Keys said. "Usually we complain that is so short. Now I’m like OK, I’m ready, I want to play tennis again."

The 25-year-old has spent a lot of time with her boyfriend Bjorn Fratangelo, cooking, gardening and training. Though it was challenging to adjust to the new dates of travel for the 2021 Australia swing, she's really looking forward to getting the season underway.

And the lengthy off-season had some benefits.

"It's actually been really great to have this much time because you can actually practice a little bit of everything for the first time," she said. "We’ve really been working on serve plus one, return plus one, trying to get to the net more. I don't promise to actually be at the net by [2021], but I'm going to try."

Protocols in Melbourne require a two-week quarantine and limited interaction with others so Keys had to pick her first practice partner carefully. She chose compatriot Jennifer Brady.

"It’ll be obviously a different experience only playing with one to three other people, but it will probably be fun since Jenny is a part of it," she said.

The world No. 16 played just five events in 2020, with her best run at the very start of the year when she reached the Brisbane final. Though Roland Garros was her last event, she got to end the season on a high note when she was honored with a Musial Award for her nonprofit organization, Kindness Wins.

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"Obviously launching a foundation in what would have been, I think, the second week of quarantine was not perfect timing for us," she said. "To be honored the way that I was with the award really meant a lot. I'm really looking forward to hopefully being able to do more [this] year."

Check out the latest episode of the TENNIS.com Podcast with strength coach Gunnar Peterson:

Keys gears up for 2021 on heels of long off-season

Keys gears up for 2021 on heels of long off-season

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