"Winning a Slam is definitely more than just a 'sneaky good' year" - Pegula jokes about Keys Grand Slam triumph while reminiscing on 2025 campaigns

Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady sat down on their podcast, The Player's Box, to offer their thoughts and reviewing their campaigns and best bits of of what has been a long but dramatic season on the WTA Tour.

Firstly, they discussed the recent WTA Finals, in which Keys and Pegula competed in singles, while Krawczyk locked horns in the doubles. The WTA Finals have been and gone, with the main talking point the four took out of it was the illness spreading around. Krawczyk disclosed her experience of avoiding it. "There was literally one point where I walked into the training room and was like, 'I hear there are people that are sick.' And they were like, 'Who isn’t sick?' And I was like, 'Ah, get me out of here.' And then they put like six vitamin C packets into a small bottle of water. I asked how many I should use, and she just kept pouring them in and said, 'Here you go.'"

Keys was on the wrong end of this, having to miss her last group match due to her feeling unwell. "I started coming down with it, and I was like, 'Jess, stay away from everyone. Don’t go near anyone,' because we were all dying," Keys said, being a supportive friend.

"Yeah, it wasn’t great," Pegula said. "It sucks when that happens — especially at a tournament where it just spreads. We’re all eating together, hitting, practicing, using the gym. So that was kind of a bummer."

While that was a negative, the crowd was a huge positive while competing in Riyadh for Pegula, Keys and Krawczyk. "I got a lot of questions about that in press, and I said it was so much different than last year," Pegula said. "Last year, it felt like people didn’t really know how to cheer because they hadn’t had tennis here before. But this year, it felt way more like a real crowd — chants, people yelling names, cheering, and even different sections of fans based on who they were supporting. It was cool to see that change from last year — hopefully it means tennis is growing a little bit more in this region of the world."

It was easy for Keys to pic her highlight of the year: "Probably the Australian Open. Coming home with Daphne was super fun. I had a really good start to my year. I think it’s the most matches I’ve ever won in a season, the most points I’ve ever earned. I reached a new career high—No. 5 in the world—then Jess overtook me again, which was annoying, but whatever. I had to grind my life away in Asia and China."

"Winning a Slam is definitely more than just a 'sneaky good' year. That’s what people dream of," Pegula responded, who is still searching for her maiden major title.

She went on to ask Keys what the turning point was. Keys answered the Adelaide International. "Honestly, yeah. I played Beatriz Haddad Maia first round in Adelaide and the ball felt like a watermelon—I played unreal. She then revealed a message Pegula sent her. "That week kind of snowballed, and then I got my hype text from Jess after the final. She said, 'You’re winning the Australian Open.'"

"I was like, 'You’re playing so good.' At least I didn’t jinx her," Pegula admitted. The jinx would be on her after Brady messaged her ahead of the Roland Garros. "I did! It was right after the French Open. I said, 'You’re going to be fresh as a daisy,'" Brady said. "Jess texted me right after: “'Jenny, don’t ever say I’m going to win Wimbledon again.'"

Her answer was much more recent. "My 'wow' moment was probably the Asian swing—mentally battling through all those three-set matches, saving and losing match points, and still making the finals in Wuhan to qualify for the year-end finals. Normally, I don’t play great there, so to push through that mentally was big for me," Pegula said.