Losing a match after having a 5-0 lead in the deciding set could be derailing for any player, but Madison Keys appeared composed after her brutal US Open loss against Qinwen Zheng. However, the former Australian Open champion fought back tears as she admitted that the loss was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a long-standing internal struggle.

“I feel like I got off to a really good lead and then I just got really scared. I felt like I couldn’t swing. Tennis just feels really hard right now. I feel like that kind of took over,” confessed Keys in her post-match interview.

Notably, for the 31-year-old American, the match got off to an excellent start. Keys wrapped up the opening set 6-1 in just 23 minutes, making it seem as though Zheng’s extra qualifying matches were beginning to catch up with her.

But the Chinese player quickly turned things around, breaking Keys in the eighth game of the second set to take a 5-3 lead. Recalling the moment, Keys said, “I think my level dropped & she started to play better. I just feel like I’ve kind of been struggling for a while now & I feel like I was able to play through it for a bit.”

Moreover, as Zheng gradually clawed her way into the match, there was a visible change in Keys’s demeanor as she kept getting frustrated. When the Chinese player had squared it up at 5-5, the American banged the racket on her own head. Keys’s admission of having on-court struggles is not far off the mark, as she was on the edge against Anna Bondar in the previous match, when it was the American who came back from 5-2 down and saved five match points.

“I’m sure everyone could kind of see that I was struggling a bit. Inside it’s felt probably even bigger than that. Some weeks are easier than others. This week is obviously one of the harder ones just because you care so much. I’m gonna have to make some sort of changes,” the American admitted, with the disappointment clear on her face.

While the 31-year-old American has now opened up about the mental struggles she faced during her match against Zheng, Keys has been working on that side of her game for quite some time. In 2025, she revealed that she had been speaking to a therapist for more than a year, not just about tennis, but about life away from the court as well. She credited that work with helping her manage her nerves during matches.

In fact, her work with a sports psychologist also helped Keys understand herself and her game on a deeper level. Looking back on that period, she explained how learning to sit with her emotions rather than immediately trying to fix them changed her approach.

“You just put your head down and keep going into the next thing. At some point that catches up with you and so it was really important for me to learn how to actually just sit and be introspective and figure out what I was feeling and why. And then just being OK with that and not immediately trying to fix it and make it go away,” stated Keys before her 2025 Australian Open campaign.

Moreover, after a difficult 2024 season, Keys also made some significant changes to her game. She switched from a Wilson racket to the larger Yonex and made adjustments to her serve. But according to the American, one of the most positive changes of the past two years came with the appointment of her husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, as part of her team. “I was struggling when I asked him to help me out,” Keys recalled of the June 2023 move.

However, this year, after navigating her early-season struggles, Keys arrived at Flushing Meadows this year looking confident about making a deep run. But the on-court struggles she later spoke about got the better of her, eventually bringing her campaign to an end.

And perhaps that made the defeat sting a little more. As her home Slam, the US Open has never been an easy place for Keys. Flushing Meadows has given the American some of the highest points of her career, but also some of her toughest moments over the years.

The US Open Has Been a Tough Event for Madison Keys Over the Years

Flushing Meadows also carries some difficult memories for Keys, with some of those moments dating back to 2017. The American entered the tournament as the home favorite, and she played well throughout the draw to reach her maiden Slam final. However, in her match against Sloane Stephens, Keys struggled to maintain her composure, losing 0-6, 3-6, and breaking down in tears during the on-court presentation.

The next heartbreak for Keys at Flushing Meadows came in 2023, when she played against Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinal. Having bagelled the Belarusian in the first set, the home favorite had a 5-3 lead in the second set with the support of the Arthur Ashe crowd behind her. However, Keys couldn’t quite cross the finish line. Sabalenka eventually sealed the match in a third-set tiebreak, leaving the American in tears during her post-match press conference.

Even last year, when Keys made her Grand Slam breakthrough in Melbourne, she could not use that confidence in New York, as she made a first-round exit after a loss to Renata Zarazua, which saw the American make countless unforced errors. The former World No.5 has been open about her relying on therapy in the past, especially in the lead-up to the Australian Open title run, and one can hope that she will be able to get the mental reset she needs to be back on the Tour.