After the match, Keys was compared to Serena Williams by Sabalenka after she hit 29 winners in the Australian Open final.

Williams was one of many to congratulate her compatriot, with Coco Gauff also congratulating Keys on her maiden major win.

Despite Keys winning the Australian Open final, the world number seven’s coach actually wants her to take elements of Sabalenka’s game.

Bjorn Fratangelo says what he wants Madison Keys to copy from Aryna Sabalenka

Keys is coached by husband Bjorn Fratangelo, having developed their romantic relationship into a working partnership in Spring 2023.

Prior to the Australian Open final, Fratangelo claimed Sabalenka is ‘more polished’ than Keys.

When speaking on Andy Roddick’s podcast, Fratangelo suggested that there are still parts of Sabalenka’s game that he wants Keys to implement into her own.

“What Sabalenka did to Madi in the second set is what I would love to see Madi do,” admitted Fratangelo. “I work on the forehand dropper with her probably three times a week, every week, as long as I have been coaching her and how many droppers have you seen off that wing in her matches?

“It’s like she gets girls so far back. You get them guessing a little bit and then you saw Madi at one point which Sabalenka had a ball which she starts running for and then Sabalenka hits it and now she is running backwards. It’s like it doesn’t have to be good, with how far you get girls back, you could hit a dropper to the service line and there is no way they are going to get there.

“But I will ask her after matches, more so in practice matches, and I will say did you think about it and she will go no, not even in my head at all. But I feel like that is the evolution.

“The only time she will pull it out is if she wants to bail out of a rally because she is winded or we have been hitting for 50 balls back and forth and she wants a new ball. I’m like it’s good when you do it!”

There was one drop shot in particular that came off in the Australian Open final, with Keys hitting another ‘insane’ shot.

What Bjorn Fratangelo was expecting Aryna Sabalenka to do after the first set of the Australian Open final

Keys won the first set against Sabalenka, 6-3, before the world number one responded to win the second.

Fratangelo expected Sabalenka to raise her level in the second set, but admitted that the way she did it caught him by surprise.

“After the first set I was saying in the box expect Sabalenka to get better but right now, Madi is beating her in the ball speed match,” Fratangelo explained. “If it’s a puncher’s match Madi is winning. But I didn’t think it was going to go that way. She was throwing in backhand slice, looping balls high on Madi’s backhand, which is not a ball that Madi likes.

“So I was thinking Sabalenka was going to come out even faster and try and beat Madi to the punch and then all of a sudden she does that and I was like okay, this is going to be a bit dicey as this is not a match Madi wants to play.

“Then I felt like Sabalenka missed a few droppers early in the third and abandoned the whole idea, then it became a hitting match again and Madi just stole it in the last few points, which was great. But I feel like that’s the evolution for her going forward.”

Keys managed to regain composure against Sabalenka to win her first Grand Slam title at 29-years-old.

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