MELBOURNE, Australia — Madison Keys planned to walk into the player tunnel at Rod Laver Arena in a quiet moment when nobody was watching, and take a photo of her name listed with the other champions at the Australian Open.After beating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in last year’s final at Melbourne Park to win her first Grand Slam title, Keys pictured the moment she’d return to the stadium for the first time as defending champion.“I’ve always kind of remembered walking through that tunnel and seeing all the names,” she said Friday, two days before the first major of the year starts. “It was a little bit of a pinch-me moment where I was like, ‘Wow, I’m going to be up there.’“I have not seen my name in the tunnel yet. I hope I can go in there when there’s no one else so I can take a picture and send it to my mom.”Before facing the media in Melbourne, she couldn’t help but notice other evidence at the venue of her breakthrough triumph.“There’s a really cool photo of me holding the trophy,” Keys said. “Getting to see those, it’s something you dream of in your career.”The 30-year-old American said it was easy to look back almost 12 months and think everything worked to perfection, but “also you think about, ‘Wow, I almost lost.’”I was match point down. So many three-set matches. There were some ugly matches. I think it kind of just makes everything a little bit better …
