Madison Keys may be best known for the raw power of her serve, but it’s been her return to the Open this year that has been the focus of so many people’s attention.
Last year, the 14th-ranked Keys advanced to her first Grand Slam final in Flushing, but she was soundly beaten by her close friend Sloane Stephens. It was a dispiriting loss for Keys, who won just three games and was blanked in the second set, 6-0.
Keys rather transparently was the victim of nerves that crippled her big game that day.
“I definitely think my play today came down to nerves and all of that, and I just don't think I handled the occasion perfectly,” Keys admitted last year.
How would she handle returning to the scene of both her greatest professional achievement – and, it has to be said, biggest debacle?
The 23-year-old, easy-going Californian has approached it the way she does most things: with good humor, an appropriate quotient of self-reflection and a steely determination to improve.
Fresh from the final, Keys was asked what she might do differently if she could have a do-over. “Win some more games!” she said with a broad smile.
Four months later, at the start of the season in Australia, Keys reflected on her experience as a US Open finalist. “I mean, I'm never going to look back at that final and think, like, 'God, what a good day.' If you told me that two weeks before I would say I'll take it, and then I get to that day and it was like the world was ending.
"But, at the same time, I had 13 amazing days,” Keys added. “It was obviously not how I wanted it to end. But for the year that I had, that was super unexpected.”
Back in New York, Keys is into her second consecutive US Open semifinal after dominant victories over Dominika Cibulkova and Carla Suarez Navarro.
“I think I have to kind of remember it's a new tournament,” Keys said. “It's a different year. I think it's going to be obviously a totally different experience for me.
“But I do have the experience of getting through a lot of tough matches and being able to use the crowd to help me through some tough moments. So that's definitely where I feel like I have that experience under my belt, and I feel more comfortable coming back into this US Open,” she said.
"I think I have to kind of remember it's a new tournament. It's a different year."
WATCH: Melanie's Minute with Madison Keys
That she has the game to succeed at the top — and win Slams — has never really been in doubt.
The 5-foot-10 Keys possesses, along with Serena Williams, the most dominant serve in the women’s game. She has a beautiful Sampras-like delivery: loose wrist, perfect rhythm.
Her strokes are fluid, struck with preternatural timing. It often looks like she’s not really going for a lot, but the ball comes off her racquet with startling velocity. She hits a thunderous ball.
Keys is a textbook example of what observers mean when they describe a player with “easy power.” Her forehand has been clocked faster than nearly all men on tour, including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and even Juan Martin del Potro.
At the French Open in 2014, Keys registered the highest average groundstroke speed of any player, male or female. At the 2016 Australian Open, she averaged 81 mph on her forehand, according to data compiled by Game Insight Group (GIG), faster than all men, save Tomas Berdych.
“Everyone looks at the Keys numbers and is taken aback,” said GIG director Dr. Machar Reid. “Madison’s balls skid through the court more than most.”
Keys has used her big weapons to accumulate three WTA titles and reach a career-high ranking of No. 7 in 2016.
Though her ranking has slid a bit, to No. 14, she has continued to contend for majors. This year, she reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and the semifinals at Roland Garros.
When her forehand and serve are clicking, Keys has the ability to impose her will on court and very nearly take her opponents out of the equation. If she could rein in her game and be somewhat more tactical about deploying her huge weapons, she might be unstoppable.
She was pretty much unstoppable against the diminutive Cibulkova, bombing her way to a very clean 6-1 opening set.
Against the feisty Slovak, Keys experienced a brief hiccup in the second set when she began making careless errors, as she is occasionally wont to do.
But the Californian quickly righted the ship. On her second match point, she blasted a signature Keys forehand – impossibly heavy and deep – into the corner that Cibulkova couldn’t handle.
If some people are already starting to look ahead to the weekend, Keys isn’t ready to do that.
“The biggest thing is to not put pressure on myself and think it's a failed tournament if I don't make the finals or win,” she said. “For me, it's doing the things I can do to control the situation.”
If Keys can advance to the US Open final, it would be a return to the scene of the crime, as it were. Maybe this time she can steal the crown.
