What tennis racket is Madison Keys using at Australian Open 2025? All you need to know

Madison Keys will play the second Grand Slam final of her career on Sunday at the Australian Open. The momentous occasion comes eight years after her first at the 2017 US Open when she came up short against Sloane Stephens.

Not a lot has changed in the big-hitting American’s game but some tweaks have caught the attention of many. While she continues to risk everything on the groundstrokes, Keys is now doing it with a different racket: the Yonex Ezone.

The American ended her longtime association with Wilson, choosing the, for the lack of a better word, “safer” racket. The brain behind the change is husband-and-coach Bjorn Fratangelo.

Fratangelo has spoken about Keys making tweaks to not just her equipment, but mentality and technique (especially on the serve) as somewhat of a final push towards achieving her unmet career goals.

Speaking of the racket, the Yonex Ezone promises, with its squarer-than-usual frame a bigger “sweet spot”. In simpler words, the design increases the probability of the player hitting the ball from the center of the racket just a tad bit.

That alone, according to Madison Keys, has helped her soar. While she did not go into the technicalities of it all, during an interview with the WTA, she spoke about the racket being the better choice for days when she isn’t quite finding her range.

"I was just looking for a little bit of, I guess, safer, easier power," she said. "I mean, I love my racquet for a really long time obviously because I stuck with it for so long, but I felt like it was just getting a little bit difficult to play with on bad days, where it just wasn't really helping me enough."

"I have no idea why I like this racquet, what it does, like, all the specifics of it. I just knew when I picked it up, it felt really good, and that was the winner," she added.

Additionally, the Yonex Ezone will allow Madison Keys to control one vital yet unpredictable asset of her game: power.

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How has Madison Keys' new racket helped her control her power?

Madison Keys is known for her powerful groundstrokes. (Source: Getty)

Power has never been an issue for Madison Keys, as it comes naturally to her. It’s her inability to always be in control of said power that often becomes her undoing.

The American is notorious for blowing hot and cold within matches. When she is timing the ball well, there’s no better sight. But when the timing goes off even slightly, things can unravel quickly in the form of a barrage of unforced errors.

That’s where the Yonex Ezone possibly gives her just that extra bit of room. The racket is simply more forgiving to players when they lose their touch during matches.

The winner-to-error ratio is always key to the American’s matches. It read fairly well, as it has for most of the tournament, for her showdown against Iga Swiatek as the 37 unforced errors were offset by 36 winners. On the “bad days” that Madison Keys mentioned, the figure would reach much worse. Just to put things in perspective, the ratio stood at 18:31 leaning towards the unforced errors during the US Open final against Stephens.

Other things have changed too, with the serve going from the platform stance to pinpoint in a bid to reduce pressure on some of the joints. Keys has also been vocal about her changed mindset, going as far as speaking about a vow that she made to herself of not giving away the big points for cheap.

The adjustments may feel miniscule but for a player who has played a certain way and resisted change for years, the experience can be completely alien. And so it was for Madison Keys, but decided to take it head-on, telling WTA in an interview:

"If you are going to rip things apart, you might as well rip everything apart, right?"

There’s no denying the positive impact that the fresh changes/additions have had on Keys’ game. She is playing at her freest in a long time but the risks that she takes are slightly more calculated and the results are proportionately better.

The American faces her biggest test yet in the Australian Open trophy match. Fittingly, Aryna Sabalenka, a player who herself went through the wringer before mastering her own raw power, is the only thing separating her and the summit.