Who emerged from Women's Australian Open 2025 with most credit?

Madison Keys may have won the title at the 2025 Australian Open but there were a myriad of players leaving Melbourne who can leave with their heads held high. In this article, we look at the main players from the top of the draw down who made a very good account of their fortnight.

Keys defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the final 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 to win her maiden Grand Slam in a run that captured the hearts and minds of those who follow women's tennis. But that is just one result that was unpredictable.

Starting off of course with the champion in Australia, Madison Keys has always been as harsh as it sounds a nearly woman. She reached the final of the 2017 US Open and many wondered whether she would ever ascend that summit again.

She left that press conference in tears and has since meddled in winning titles but nothing to the same level. She has also battled real injury hell in the past 12 months. But the last few weeks have perhaps been the best of her life.

She ended the season getting married to her long-time coach Bjorn Fratalangelo and went into the new season fit and healthy. She won Adelaide in the lead-up albeit as Sabalenka proved again, the warm-up win is not the caveat to success. The Brisbane curse is very much still real.

But perhaps it was the greatest Women's Grand Slam run of the modern era, she beat Sabalenka, Swiatek, Svitolina, Elena Rybakina and Danielle Collins. Not to mention Ann Li and Elena-Gabriela Ruse. In a side of the sport unlike the men that is unpredictable, Keys proved again that the good people eventually prevail and that it is still very not a field for those who bet that is for sure.

Despite losing in the final, Aryna Sabalenka proved again that she is the player to well and truly beat in the WTA.

She is still World No.1 and Keys defeating Iga Swiatek stopped any sort of potential for anything different. She took down Clara Tauson, Mirra Andreeva, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Paula Badosa en route to losing to Keys.

She emerges in this list also as she is very much the kind of player to bounce back from a setback. Even Roland Garros, she suffered more heartbreak before she became an all conquering force in the sport.

So in reality, the scars may be there but the comeback is better than the setback and unlike last two years, she will be raring to go for the Middle East in conditions she previously excelled in.

Speaking of Badosa, she was perhaps the biggest WTA success story period of the last 12 months and proved it again.

From being on the treatment table and in tears more than she was actually on court little over a year ago, she needed back injections to actually save her career.

To now being back in the top 10 and continuing to go from strength to strength. She sat slumped in the back of the Rod Laver Arena as she lost again to Aryna Sabalenka, her best friend. But after going from being out of the top 100 a year ago to now, it is very much a Badosa firmly back on the rise and in reaching the semi-finals which is her best ever Grand Slam run, it shows that there is still legs in the career of the 27-year-old.

On what was her return to action at a Grand Slam, Belinda Bencic who surprisingly given how long she has been on tour is only 27 reached the fourth round months after becoming a mother for the first time.

No player really since returning from pregnancy has found it this easy really. Maybe Elina Svitolina but even that took months. Naomi Osaka is still not back to full force and Angelique Kerber retired shortly after her initial stint back.

But perhaps it wasn't a huge surprise. Bencic has been grinding in small tournaments to gain match practice for months and then emerged into the fourth round of the Australian Open losing eventually to Coco Gauff in three sets.

She did have a walk-over in the battle of the mothers against Naomi Osaka but still took out Jelena Ostapenko and Suzan Lamens. A player very much intriguing to watch in the coming months as she seems to have hit the ground running again in truly superb fashion.