{"id":6374,"date":"2026-01-20T15:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6374"},"modified":"2026-01-20T15:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:22:22","slug":"australian-open-2026-madison-keys-overcomes-nerves-to-beat-oleksandra-oliynykova-to-start-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=6374","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026: Madison Keys overcomes nerves to beat Oleksandra Oliynykova to start title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"


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If Madison Keys was not nervous enough about starting her Australian Open title defence, facing an unknown opponent only added to the tension.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 30-year-old American had a fairytale run in Melbourne 12 months ago, culminating in her lifting the first Grand Slam trophy of her career.<\/p>\n

However, she made an edgy start to her title defence on Tuesday, losing the first four games to Grand Slam debutant Oleksandra Oliynykova.<\/p>\n

Keys said afterwards she had struggled to find footage of her opponent to help her prepare, with Oliynykova’s defensive play style not matching up well with her big-hitting game.<\/p>\n

But the ninth seed eventually settled down to clinch a 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 victory over the Ukrainian.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been thinking about this moment for basically a year,” said Keys.<\/p>\n

“The moment they say, ‘Ready, play’, it all hits you in a way that I don’t think you can ever really explain.<\/p>\n

“As nerve-racking and stressful as that can be, I’m still reminding myself of just how few people get to be in that moment.<\/p>\n

“Being able to walk out today and have the crowd be as welcoming as they were, I’ll take the stress any day.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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If Madison Keys was not nervous enough about starting her Australian Open title defence, facing an unknown opponent only added to the tension. The 30-year-old American had a fairytale run in Melbourne 12 months ago, culminating in her lifting the first Grand Slam trophy of her career. However, she made an edgy start to her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}