2025 Australian Open women's semifinal preview: Iga Swiatek vs. Madison Keys

One thing we probably shouldn’t expect in the Australian Open semifinal between Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek is an epic. When these two get together, matches tend to end in a hurry. They’ve played five times; all five have finished in straight—and mostly lopsided—sets. The last two meetings, in Madrid and Rome in 2024, were 6-1, 6-3 routs for Swiatek. Three years ago, Swiatek beat Keys 1-and-0 at Indian Wells.

Keys, who has lost four of five to the No. 2 seed, knows what’s she in for, and the balance between offense and defense that she has to maintain to have a chance.

“I think it's really hard to ever really get ahead in a point,” Keys says of facing Swiatek. “You’re not really going to try to out-defend Iga. So then there’s just such a balance of being aggressive and trying to get her to move and going for things, but not pressing too hard and not going for anything too quickly.”

Keys did find the formula once, when she beat Swiatek—also in straight sets—in Cincinnati in 2022.

“I love the courts in Cincinnati, they play pretty fast,” Keys said. “It was just kind of one of those days where the ball felt lively, and I was able to kind of get ahead a little bit earlier in the point consistently, and just was able to kind of run with that pressure.

“I feel like every other time I’ve played her it's been on the slowest court ever, and she's just gotten every single ball back over.”

The good news for Keys is that the Australian Open courts play faster than they once did. The bad news is that this semi is the late match on Laver, and will start well into the evening, when temperatures have gone down and the ball has slowed.

The other bad news is that Swiatek has been using that natural spin that Keys mentioned to greater effect on hard courts at this event. Swiatek’s new coach, Wim Fissette, says that, rather than having her change her game and flatten out her strokes for this surface, he wanted her to stick with the heavy topspin that has worked so well for her on clay over the years. The results have spoken for themselves: She has lost seven games in her last four matches.

“I think working with him is more like an evolution instead of revolution,” Swiatek says of Fissette. “I wasn't looking for anybody to turn my game, like, upside down and change some crazy things.”

Keys is playing well. She has been up and down as always, but she has found the balance, and the corners, by the end of each her matches. Against Swiatek, she’ll have to find that balance much earlier, because Iga can turn into a runaway train once she gets a break. If this match were a high noon on a 100 degree day, Keys might have a better chance. But it’s not. Winner: Swiatek