Australian Open: Defending Champion Madison Keys makes winning start to title defence

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Madison Keys began her Australian Open title defence with a straight-sets victory over Oleksandra Oliynykova.

After Oliynykova’s style troubled Keys in the early stages, the reigning champion won 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 in an hour and 40 minutes.

Oliynykova’s game plan to send looping shots towards the baseline, along with plenty of lobs, to force Keys to cover much of the court in long rallies paid early dividends as the Ukrainian raced into a 4-0 lead.

There were four more breaks of serve in the first, with three going in favour of Keys as she rallied to force a tiebreak.

The tiebreak reflected the opening set as a whole, with Oliynykova taking a 4-0 lead, but she failed to convert two set points before Keys fought back to take the first.

Keys did not look back from there, adjusting her game to counter Oliynykova’s tactics and cruising through the second, sealing the win with her first match point as her counterpart fired wide with a return.

Elsewhere, 2025 WTA Finals champion Elena Rybakina defeated Kaja Juvan 6-4 6-3 to progress into the second round.

Rybakina broke her opponent’s serve once in each game while holding her own throughout, also clinching the win with an ace.

Data Debrief: Not a good day for the underdogs

Since the event’s move from Kooyong in 1988, the reigning women’s singles champions are now 28-1 in the opening round at the tournament, with Jennifer Capriati (2003) the only player not to progress in that span.

And this was Oliynykova’s first main draw match at WTA level. Since the introduction of the tier format in 1990, no player has defeated a WTA top 10 opponent in their first WTA-level match.

Rybakina, meanwhile, is undefeated in the first round at the Australian Open (7-0): she is one of the 3 players to reach the second round at the event in all the last seven editions alongside Iga Swiatek and Elise Mertens.