Hey Aryna Sabalenka, we know you’re getting ready to go for your Australian Open three-peat Saturday and you’re No. 1 in the world and far and away the best hard court player on the women’s tour. 

But for all of us American tennis fans, can you please just let Madison Keys have this one? 

My goodness does she deserve it. 

A few weeks from her 30th birthday, Keys played the match of her life Thursday morning in the U.S. (Thursday night in Australia) to outlast No. 2 Iga Swiatek 5-7, 6-1, 7-6, capped by a 10-8 tiebreak in which it seemed like Keys was fighting from behind the entire way until a late burst of energy lifted her over the finish line. 

It took a stunning amount of clutch tennis for Keys to pull this off. At 4-4 in the third set, she had to erase a 0-40 deficit and ultimately save four break points. Then, after getting broken at 5-5, Keys found some heavy forehands and saved a match point to scratch out a break of serve and send it to the tiebreaker. 

There, Keys was down 3-1, 4-2, 5-3, 6-4, 7-5 and 8-7 — all of those moments potential backbreakers — before reeling off the last three points and joyfully screaming into her racket as Swiatek’s final forehand sailed long. 

For American tennis fans who have followed Keys over the years, it would have been hard to have faith that this one was going to go her direction. Maybe for Keys, too. 

She’s had a wonderful career: Nine WTA titles, a long time in the top 10 and nearly $20 million in earnings. But there have also been so, so many times that Keys has been on the verge of a big breakthrough in the Grand Slams only to have something go heartbreakingly wrong. 

The one time she made a Slam final, at the 2017 US Open, Keys didn’t put her best foot forward against her good friend Sloane Stephens and got swept off the court 6-3, 6-0. Every subsequent attempt to get back to that stage of a major has been disappointing — perhaps none moreso than the 2023 US Open when Keys let a 6-0, 5-3 lead over Sabalenka slip away and also couldn’t close the deal in the third set from up 4-2. In the fourth round at Wimbledon a year ago when it looked like everything was lining up for a deep run, Keys was up 5-2 in the third against eventual finalist Jasmine Paolini before hurting her leg and retiring at 5-5.

At this stage of her career, we don’t have to harp on the fact that Keys doesn’t have a ton of time to put a Grand Slam in her trophy case. This may be as good a shot as she gets. 

And as well as she played to beat Swiatek, the task in front of her will be even more difficult. 

All kidding aside, Sabalenka is not going to give this title up easily. For three straight years now, she’s been at her absolute best in Australia. This time, Sabalenka has dropped only one set in her run to the finals and seems completely dialed into the court speed, the conditions and what she needs to keep her massive baseline power game within the margins. 

In the head-to-head matchup, Keys has only won one of five meetings — all the way back in 2021 on a grass court in Berlin. 

So let’s be real: All the data points to another Sabalenka win, which would be her fourth Slam title and very much put her in contention to be the best player of the post-Serena Williams era. 

At the same time, there’s just something irresistible about the entire career arc of turning pro at age 14 under massive expectations, accomplishing a lot in the game but maybe not quite what everyone thought, then finally getting the ultimate reward after so many years and chances have gone by. 

What a great story that would be for Keys, who has been really good for a long time but not quite good enough to win one of these tournaments. 

The effort she put forth to beat Swiatek on Thursday was powerful, resilient, Slam-winning tennis. It was a performance for Keys and all of her fans in America to be proud of. 

Now she’ll have to do it all over again — and then some — to avoid another gut-wrenching near-miss at a Grand Slam. The old Sabalenka might have given away a final. She was too wild, too emotionally volatile, too anxious to perform on that stage. But now, this is her comfort zone.

So there’s no other option for Keys. After playing the match of her life, winning the Australian Open will require her to play that level of tennis one more time.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken

Ravens tight end Mark Andrews had largely kept his head down and mouth shut in the aftermath of his team’s divisional round clash with the Bills. That changed on Thursday afternoon.

The veteran tight end shared his thoughts and emotions in the aftermath of the Ravens’ divisional round loss in an Instagram post Thursday.

‘It’s impossible to adequately express how I feel,’ Andrews wrote. ‘I’m absolutely gutted by what happened on Sunday. I’m devastated for my teammates, my coaches and Ravens fans. I pour every ounce of my being into playing at the highest level possible, because I love my team and the game of football like nothing else. That is why it’s taken me until now to collect my thoughts and address this publicly.

‘Even though the shock and disappointment are unlike anything I’ve felt before, I refuse to let the situation define me. I promise that this adversity will only make me stronger and fuel us as we move forward. I thank everyone who has shown me and our team genuine support these past several days.

‘Despite the negativity, I’ve seen heartfelt love and encouragement, including from those who have generously donated to the Breakthrough T1D organization. Even when the moment seems darkest, perspective can reveal that there’s still a lot of light in this world. I’m now going to do my part to bounce back and contribute to it. #GodBless’

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In the days since the game, football fans and other members of the NFL community have raised over $100,000 for Breakthrough T1D, a non-profit organization dedicated to research and advocacy for type 1 diabetes, using a GoFundMe created by a Bills fan.

Andrews refused to speak to the media on Sunday night following the Ravens’ 27-25 loss to the Bills. The veteran tight end’s critical drop during a two-point conversion attempt late in the game proved to be the difference in the loss, and as such, he’s been the target of much online hate and vitriol.

Three days after the fundraiser began and four days after the loss, Andrews was clearly ready to make his first public comments since the game ended.

Three individuals implicated in selling forged Jason Kelce-signed sports memorabilia valued at over $200K face dozens of felony charges, the Montgomery County District Attorney announced on Thursday.

Robert Capone, 51, LeeAnn Branco, 43, and Joseph Parenti, 39, were charged with 60 felonies, including forgery, theft by deception and dealing in the proceeds of unlawful practices, after attempting to pass over a thousand counterfeit sports memorabilia items purportedly autographed by Kelce as authentic goods.

According to the District Attorney’s office, the three suspects used Branco’s status as a Beckett Authentication Services employee to ‘verify’ forged Kelce signatures that he supposedly gave at the Valley Forge Casino Hotel in Pennsylvania in June 2024. The fake items were then listed for sale with a certificate of authenticity by Overtime Promotions and Diamond Legends, which are owned by Capone and Parenti, respectively.

‘The value of these 1,138 memorabilia items—including signed jerseys, helmets, mini-helmets, hats, photos, footballs and other items—was approximately $200,000,’ the District Attorney’s office said in a statement.

The Montgomery County District Attorney was alerted to the counterfeit items in June 2024 by THC Humphreys LLC, the sports memorabilia company that contracted Kelce to conduct a legitimate signing at a private event at the Valley Forge Casino Hotel on the days that the forged merchandise was said to be signed.

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‘Branco and Parenti attended the legitimate signing event on June 11, 2024, at the Valley Forge Casino Hotel, and Branco secured a photo with Kelce in order to validate her in-the-presence authentication of the forged memorabilia that was never actually signed by Kelce,’ the statement added.

In a statement to ABC News, Beckett Authentication Services apologized to anyone impacted by the scam and promised a refund. ‘A bad-acting independent contractor broke Beckett protocols. Luckily, we have identified this scheme, involved the authorities to take all proper legal action and are now looking to buy back all the fraudulent memorabilia,’ the company said. The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

Among baseball’s newest Hall of Famers, Ichiro Suzuki came one vote shy of a unanimous election – something that has only happened once in history.

At a media conference in Cooperstown on Thursday, the first-ever Japanese Hall of Famer joked about the lone member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who did not include him on their 2025 ballot.

“I was able to receive many votes from the writers. I am grateful for them,” Suzuki said, via an interpreter. “There is one writer that I wasn’t able to get a vote from. I would like to invite him over to my house and we’ll have a drink together and we’ll have a good chat.”

Suzuki made his Major League Baseball debut in 2001, winning the American League MVP award and Rookie of the Year. In 19 seasons with the Mariners, Yankees and Marlins, Suzuki racked up 3,089 hits and won 10 Gold Glove awards.

‘I’ve been coming to the Hall of Fame as a player … and what an honor it is for me to be here as a Hall of Famer,’ Suzuki said Thursday in Cooperstown.

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The only unanimous Hall of Fame selection was Mariano Rivera in 2019, with Derek Jeter also coming up one vote shy in 2020.

The first 12-team College Football Playoff is in the books after Ohio State’s national championship game win over Notre Dame, and that means focus on campus will quickly turn to college basketball and the March Madness that looms less than two months away.

Women’s college basketball, in particular, is in the midst of a crucial moment in its history, with more attention paid to the sport because of what generational players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have done for its popularity in recent years. This season – even with Clark and Reese off to the professional ranks – appears poised to continue that momentum, having already produced a series of intriguing headlines and another batch of stars with the potential to further fuel the growth of women’s basketball.

The national championship contenders are separating themselves from the pack now that conference play is here and there are several key games coming up soon that will set the tone heading into Selection Sunday. If you haven’t been paying attention to the women’s college basketball season until now, here’s a breakdown of some key trends and stories to track ahead of the 2025 NCAA tournament.

UCLA, LSU are only two undefeated teams left

No. 1 UCLA and No. 4 LSU are the only women’s college basketball teams without a loss through games played on Wednesday, Jan. 23. Each team, however, is preparing to face another stern test in the coming days. 

The Bruins handed No. 2 South Carolina its only defeat of the season in nonconference play and have wins over Louisville, Michigan and Baylor during the best start in program history. But a matchup with No. 10 Maryland awaits this weekend to kick off the teeth of UCLA’s first Big Ten schedule. 

LSU’s path to an unblemished record has been slightly easier with just two wins over ranked opponents. But coach Kim Mulkey’s team has reeled off five-straight SEC victories and gets a chance to cement its status as a Final Four contender against South Carolina on Friday in a showdown delayed by one day due to inclement weather in the southeast. 

Who will be player of the year?

A four-way race appears to have broken out to be crowned this season’s best women’s college basketball player with less than two months to go until Selection Sunday. Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, USC’s JuJu Watkins, UCLA’s Lauren Betts and UConn’s Paige Bueckers all have cases to make.

Hidalgo is the biggest reason why the Fighting Irish are the only team to beat USC and Texas this season, while Watkins is backing up her record-setting freshman season with the Trojans by becoming a more efficient player as a sophomore. Betts is averaging a double-double while emerging as a two-way force at UCLA. Bueckers, who recently missed just two games after an injury scare, became the fastest player in UConn history to score 2,000 career points this week. 

South Carolina well-positioned for another repeat

The Gamecocks might not have a player of the year candidate, but they look poised to be a force again when March Madness arrives. South Carolina is attempting to win its fourth national championship under coach Dawn Staley, a feat that would include the Gamecocks taking back-to-back titles.

South Carolina lost versatile forward Ashlyn Watkins to a season-ending knee injury earlier this month, but 10 players are averaging at least 15 minutes per game as part of the Gamecocks’ deep rotation. They’ve already taken down Texas once and LSU could be next. Will they get to eventually avenge their lone loss this season to UCLA in the Final Four? It’s hard to bet against the Gamecocks, who keep rolling no matter what players take the court. 

An LA collision course

UCLA and USC seem headed for a duel atop the Big Ten standings this winter, with Watkins and Betts ready to play starring roles in a script made for Hollywood. These are two women’s basketball teams capable of making the Final Four at rival schools in Los Angeles, right as the region needs a distraction to bring it together in the wake of devastating wildfires that have killed at least 28 people and destroyed more than 15,000 structures, according to authorities.

UCLA and USC play two games as part of their first season in the Big Ten. USC hosts UCLA on Friday, Feb. 13 and Trojans officials have already announced a sellout. The two teams then close the regular season against one another in Westwood when USC visits UCLA on March 1. 

Iowa’s Caitlin Clark hangover

The Hawkeyes were the talk of the sport led by Caitlin Clark, but the post-Clark era is in danger of beginning with Iowa (13-7) on the outside of the NCAA tournament bubble. Iowa has only three wins in its first nine Big Ten games thus far and still must play a brutal league schedule filled with ranked teams the rest of the way. The Hawkeyes made back-to-back Final Four appearances with players like Clark, Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall. It was never going to be easy to replace that historic group – and it hasn’t been.

Who has surprised?

No. 9 TCU was the highest-ranked Big 12 team in the national polls this week before losing a thriller to Oklahoma State, but the Horned Frogs were picked fourth in the league’s preseason poll. They’ve replaced Iowa State, one of this season’s disappointments so far, as a top Big 12 contender along with No. 8 Kansas State.

No. 18 Georgia Tech got off to a 14-0 start before a recent three-game skid in the ACC. No. 17 Tennessee started the season unranked only to reel off 13-straight wins under new coach Kim Caldwell, who’s due to give birth to her first child soon. The Vols have a gauntlet upcoming with games against Texas, South Carolina, LSU and UConn over the next few weeks.

Can Stanford keep NCAA tournament streak alive?

Stanford wasn’t expected to be elite in its first season following the departure of legendary coach Tara VanDerveer, who retired last year as the winningest coach in men’s and women’s college basketball. The Cardinal were unranked in the preseason polls and picked to finish seventh in their first year in the ACC. But Stanford entered this season with 36-straight NCAA tournament appearances, a streak surpassed only by Tennessee, and the distinction is in jeopardy of coming to an end.

Stanford has struggled against strong competition under new coach Kate Paye, with an 0-6 record in quadrant one games so far. It was slotted at No. 43 in the women’s basketball NET rankings ahead of Thursday’s action. ESPN had Stanford listed as one of its ‘first four out’ in its most recent bracketology.

Just because the NBA is at its midseason point doesn’t mean it’s too early to take stock of how the 2024-25 season has unfolded.

And while there have been some surprises, the Oklahoma City Thunder appear well on their way to clinching the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference for the second season in a row. OKC has leaned on MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams is emerging as a star, and the Thunder have impressively done this mostly without Chet Holmgren.

In the East, it’s the surprising Cleveland Cavaliers who have raced past the field in their first season with Kenny Atkinson as coach.

Winners and losers of the 2024-25 NBA season, at the midway point:

(All stats are through Wednesday morning)

WINNERS

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder

The two best teams in the NBA, the Cavs in the East and the Thunder in the West, are the only ones with single-digit loss totals. Not only are Cleveland and Oklahoma City the only teams to have winning percentages of .700 or better, they’re the only ones to crack .800. The similarities don’t stop there. Both embody team basketball, share the ball and protect it; the Cavaliers lead the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.23), while the Thunder rank second (2.17).

Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons

Last season, Detroit won 14 games and had the worst record in the NBA. This year, at midseason, the Pistons have already surpassed that win total by eight games and are locked in a fight with the Atlanta Hawks, Orlando Magic and Miami Heat for the sixth seed in the East, the final guaranteed playoff spot. Sparking the turnaround has been Cade Cunningham, who is playing like an All-Star and is averaging career highs in points, assists and rebounds.

After slow start, Denver Nuggets are surging

On Dec. 7, the Nuggets lost to a Wizards team that entered the night with just two wins and on a 16-game losing streak. Denver, at that point, fell to 11-10. Since then, the Nuggets are 16-6 and their offensive efficiency has been the catalyst for the turnaround. Not only has Nikola Jokić been outstanding — averaging 30.1 points, 13.2 rebounds and 9.9 assists per game — but Jamal Murray has returned to form after a summer in which he struggled with the Canadian national team. In fact, Jokić is scoring less, which has allowed his supporting cast to step up. Denver’s 3-point stroke has also stabilized, giving the offense far more versatility.

The New York Knicks took a chance, and it paid off

New York’s front office saw the strain on Jalen Brunson to sustain the team’s offense late in the postseason and decided to be aggressive. The trade that sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Timberwolves for Karl-Anthony Towns has been a stroke of genius. Towns is having a career year and his range has allowed for excellent spacing, giving his teammates the opportunity to attack the rim. Towns is also averaging career highs in rebounds with 13.9 per game, battling Domantas Sabonis and Jokić for the league lead. The Knicks (29-16) are third in the East and have their best team in a long time.

The Los Angeles Clippers persevered without Kawhi Leonard. Can he stay on the floor?

Los Angeles, thanks largely to the jump in production from Norman Powell, withstood the 35 games Kawhi Leonard missed, compiling a 19-16 record without him. (Two of those missed games came when he spent time with family during the LA-area fires. He missed Wednesday’s game due to knee injury management.). The Clippers haven’t rushed Leonard back from his offseason knee surgery, and that’s rational and calculated; they will need him for a postseason run. Leonard is nowhere close to his typical career averages, but he’s also playing far fewer minutes. Yet, through Thursday morning, L.A. was 4-2 in the games Leonard played in. He helps stabilize the defense and draws attention away from other scorers. The Clippers did the hard work. Now they must figure out how to keep him on the floor.

The young Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies have arrived

These teams have uber-athletic players all over the floor, top-10 defenses and tacticians as coaches who are extracting potential from their young rosters. They’re also competing for the No. 2 seed behind the Thunder.

LOSERS

The window to win for Golden State Warriors has fully closed

Turns out Klay Thompson’s departure over the offseason was merely a start. The Warriors, who have derailed after starting the season 12-3, look older, slower and in need of a savior. The problem is that Stephen Curry, while still an ignitable sharpshooter, can no longer will this team past its deficiencies. Curry, who turns 37 in March, hasn’t been able to finish at the rim like he has in the past. Golden State lacks an inside presence, struggles to convert two-point field goals and, according to Spotrac.com, has a whopping 84.76% of its salary cap tied up in four players: Curry (39.66%), Andrew Wiggins (18.69%), Draymond Green (17.15%) and Dennis Schröder (9.26%). Only Schröder’s is an expiring deal. Missing the play-in window is a possibility.

Miami Heat deal with dysfunction

One-and-a-half seasons removed from a historic run to the Finals, the Heat have stagnated. The Jimmy Butler era is seemingly headed to an inevitable end, and Miami’s offense at times looks stuck in the early 2000s. Miami does have some nice, young pieces in place — rookie center Kel’el Ware has even flashed in the last five games — but the Terry Rozier trade from last season was a failure and the Heat look like nothing more than a play-in team with no clear identity.

Mike Brown

Just one-and-a-half seasons after Mike Brown became the first unanimous winner of the NBA Coach of the Year award, the Kings fired him Dec. 27. Sacramento had started the season 13-18 under Brown, whom the team signed to a contract extension in July. Brown is an experienced coach with a proven track record, so he should at least latch on somewhere else as an assistant. Nonetheless, his ouster in Sacramento felt reactionary and rash.

The Big Three experiment in Philadelphia

The 76ers (15-27) are very much in position to contend for the play-in, but it’s clear that the  Big Three of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George has been a failure. Availability has been a concern, with Embiid appearing in only 13 games. George has struggled, at times looking slowed by his age and not worthy of his four-year, $212 million deal signed in June. The Sixers have lost seven in a row, the most recent a blowout against the Nuggets in which Philly could not defend.

The Washington Wizards fall behind, yet again

The only team in the NBA to not reach double-digit victories by the midway point, Washington is four games short. The Wizards are on an 11-game losing streak, which is only their second-longest this season. They tied their franchise record for most consecutive losses (set last season) with 16. Kyle Kuzma’s value has plummeted, Jordan Poole remains inconsistent and the only path out will take time — think years, not months — for Washington’s young players to keep developing.

Follow NBA reporter Lorenzo Reyes on social media @LorenzoGReyes