Madison Keys survives long and early U.S. Open test

Madison Keys became a spokesperson for an organization before the U.S. Open and promptly gave its name an honest test run in her first match, coming within two points of elimination.

Fearlessly Girl.

Now the premise of the organization, Fearlessly Girl, is not tennis-based -- it works with young women in “promoting kindness and sisterhood” in schools -- but Keys certainly embodied the name on a record-setting night in New York with her three-set win over Alison Riske. The match spilled over to Tuesday and ended at 1:48 a.m. in New York, the latest women’s finish at the Open.

It was also the first test for Keys since she tearfully departed the Olympics, going out in the semifinals and then losing in the bronze-medal match. Unlike other Olympians, tennis players don’t have to wait years for the next significant event, merely a couple of weeks after Rio until the next major.

“It still hurts, but you don’t have to wait four years so it makes it a little bit easier,” Keys said last week to The Times, before the Open.

Keys talked about the Olympics and how she is handling increased expectations, as well as her association with Fearlessly Girl. Kate Whitfield, the founder and CEO of the organization, said, via email, that Keys got in touch with them more than a year ago and felt the goals were “in line with the message she wanted to send.”

Said Keys: “It’s amazing to me that so many girls can feel so isolated and alone, just being able to sit down and talk to each other is amazing. I think it could be helpful and beneficial.

“If there’s anything I can help a couple of girls with … just being able help another generation.”

The messages could work at home too. Her two younger sisters are in high school, one is a senior and the other a freshman.

“They’re definitely going through a lot of it right now,” Keys said. “I think it’s kind of cool, my older sister can be someone who can help the freshman. Funny, how even in my own house it’s playing out.”