PARIS : American Madison Keys knows her French Open run could have ended two days ago when she faced three match points in the third round but it was getting to the brink of defeat that allowed her to cruise into the quarter-finals on Monday, she said.
Keys eased into the last eight with a straight sets win over fellow American Hailey Baptiste on Monday.
But it could all have been over on Saturday in her match against Sofia Kenin when the Australian Open champion had to defend three match points in the third set before clawing her way back to advance.
“Definitely still happy to be here,” Keys told a press conference. “Things (against Kenin) were as close as they could have been to being gone … I think you play a little bit freer when you know that.”
Keys, who reached the semi-finals in 2018 and the last eight in 2019 in Paris, will next face another American, second-seeded Coco Gauff, in the last eight.
“Huge opportunity today to kind of get through that and make another quarter-final here,” she said.
“A little bit thankful that I’m still in the tournament, but also kind of just knowing the opportunity that I had today, wanting to go out and play really solid and make sure that I took advantage of that.”
