A defining feature of Madison Keys’ recent Australian Open victory was the succession of quality opponents she beat en route to the title.
By ranking, it’s one of the best runs to a women’s singles title in the Australian Open’s Melbourne Park history, after what Mary Pierce did 30 years earlier.
At AO 1995, Pierce stormed to her first Grand Slam title without dropping a set, beating four top-10 opponents across her seven matches.
She remains the only woman to win the AO title at Melbourne Park with four top-10 wins, and one of just two players – the other being Roger Federer in 2017 – to achieve the feat.
Sven Groeneveld was coaching Pierce at the time, and remembers trying to help her relax ahead of the final against Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.
Less than a year earlier, Pierce had faced Sanchez-Vicario in the 1994 Roland Garros final, losing 6-4 6-4 after struggling with nerves.
Groeneveld figured because their approach to that previous major final hadn’t worked, they would pivot.
"And that's why it actually turned out: ‘Let's play laser tag’,” he recounted on this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast.
LISTEN: Sven Groeneveld on The Sit-Down
"We stayed in South Yarra during that time... and she couldn't sleep. She said 'you know, guys, I know we have a final tomorrow, but I'm so still [with] adrenaline and caught up'. The physical trainer and I had set up a meeting to go play laser tag, and I said, ‘why don't you join us?'
"So she joined us, played laser tag, she loved it, and she was fully engaged, and came back, slept great, and the next day she played the final, and won it. And she played great.”
Pierce outplayed Sanchez-Vicario, the top seed, 6-3 6-2 in a victory that propelled her to a career-high ranking of world No.3.
She dropped a mere 30 games throughout the fortnight, beating four consecutive top-10 opponents in her last four matches.
"She speaks of that moment, and that really stood out as one of the experiences that you cannot prepare for,” Groeneveld recalled.
“You're so in the moment, you go through the preparation, you do a lead-up, and you have three weeks, four weeks leading into (it), and then you get to that final. And that is when you can say, 'oh we have to be so serious'... instead we should actually still remember where the joy is, of just being in the moment. If you start going too far ahead, that's when we lose track.
"So [with the laser-tag] we were able to kind of bring her back in, and got her in the moment, and she had a wonderful final.”
Keys beat four top-10 seeds en route to the Australian Open 2025 title, but the fourth-highest ranked player she beat, 10th seed Danielle Collins, was actually the world No.11.
These are among the “best” runs to an AO women’s singles title, when considering opponents’ ranking, since the tournament moved to Melbourne Park. The 1988 edition was the first year the tournament expanded to a 128-player singles field and players needed to win seven rounds to hoist the trophy, making this particular achievement comparable.
We consider median ranking a better representation of the strength of a title run rather than average ranking, a measurement more strongly impacted by outlier rankings.
The top five AO title runs
1. Mary Pierce 1995
Opponents’ median ranking: 10
Opponents’ average ranking: 61.43
2. Roger Federer 2017
Opponents’ median ranking: 10
Opponents’ average ranking: 82.57
3. Maria Sharapova 2008
Opponents’ median ranking: 11
Opponents’ average ranking: 32.43
4. Madison Keys 2025
Opponents’ median ranking: 11
Opponents’ average ranking: 36.71
5. Naomi Osaka 2019
Opponents’ median ranking: 12
Opponents’ average ranking: 31.14
When Serena Williams won the AO 2007 title, her opponents’ median ranking was also 12, but their average ranking was slightly higher, at 34.14, than Osaka's opponents.
Among men, the next “best” AO title run at Melbourne Park was Novak Djokovic’s 2011 triumph. His opponents’ median ranking was 14.
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