Through the ups and downs, Madison Keys just keeps pushing forward

“Show her,” Thomas Hogstedt barked as he tried, unsuccessfully, to make eye contact with his tennis-pro pupil, Madison Keys. “Show her!”

Keys slumped in her sideline seat in Beijing and failed to return Hogstedt’s gaze. She had just lost the second set to Petra Kvitova in a tiebreaker after serving for their quarterfinal match at 6-5. At that moment, as Hogstedt stared down at her, the American looked exactly like what she was: a 21-year-old pro, far from home, at the tail end of a long season, trying to hold off a red-hot opponent. After 15 tournaments, two coaching changes, a Top 10 breakthrough, a few trips around the world and back, and more than her share of ups and downs on court, did she have anything left to show us in 2016?

Keys’ match against Kvitova can be seen as a microcosm of her season: At times she showed a newfound maturity; at other times she reverted to bad habits. But when it was over she had reached a new level of success. Keys’ 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) win sent her to her first Premier Mandatory semifinal, and left her one match from qualifying for her first WTA Finals, in Singapore. Perhaps most important, Keys did what all good players must do from time to time: She won a match that didn’t appear to be hers to win.

For most of the last two sets, it was Kvitova, who was riding an eight-match win streak, who was the hungrier, more aggressive, better player. When the Czech went up 0-40 on Keys’ serve at 4-4 in the third set, the match looked all but over. But Keys found her way through that game thanks to a trademark missile forehand winner. Two games later, she found her way through another tough hold, thanks to a heavy, savvy kick serve into the ad court when she needed it. And in the deciding tiebreaker, she found her way through again, thanks to a rocketed backhand winner at 5-5.

This matchup, between two of the game’s most spectacular and most erratic hitters—Keys and Kvitova even dressed and screamed alike on Friday—was destined to be “find a way” tennis, and that’s how it went from start to finish. Each woman won 117 points, but Keys won the last two.

“I mean, really, it could have gone either way,” Keys said. “It was really close ... I think I did a good job of staying focused and just trying to regroup and worry about the next point ... I’m just really happy that, at the end, I was able to get my serve back on track and get myself ahead in the tiebreaker.”

And that backhand winner at 5-5?

“That was just like, ‘We’re going to go for it and see what happens,’” Keys said afterward, with what I can only guess was an ear-to-ear grin.

If that quote is any indication, one important thing that Keys has learned from her long 2016 is what her strengths are. As much as we like to say that she needs to learn to play with more margin, safety and consistency, she’s never going to be better at those things than most of her top-level opponents.

Keys isn’t going to win because she stops missing; she’s going to win by connecting on the big shots at the right moments. She’s going to win by saving break points with her kick serve. She’s going to win by staying even keel mentally, even as her game itself goes haywire—which it will. Judging from what Keys has said in Beijing, as well as her much-improved 17-5 record in three-set matches this season, that last trait may be the most important of all to her success.

“I think the biggest thing is knowing that those thoughts of panic are probably going to go into your brain, and just accepting it,” Keys told WTA Insider earlier this week. "...So that’s been the biggest thing. Not fighting it and trying to think I’m going to have the perfect mentality the entire time. That’s not going to happen. So just knowing it and accepting it has been a huge thing for me.”

This doesn’t mean that Keys can’t get steadier. Against Kvitova, she tried to go down the line too early in rallies and missed wide. She went for winners from defensive, unbalanced positions and sent the ball 10 feet long. And after second serves, she was often not ready for Kvitova’s hard return to her forehand side. In general, Keys struggles to mix paces and spins; even Kvitova, her fellow slugger at all costs, has more variety in that department.

Despite all of that, though, Keys did what Hogstedt wanted: She showed Kvitova, and the rest of us, why she has had a career season in 2016. Keys showed that however imperfect and frustrating her game remains, she’s making progress with it, for herself and her fans.