MELBOURNE, Australia >> When Madison Keys stepped into Rod Laver Arena at 7:37 p.m. on Saturday night ahead of the Australian Open final, she strode right past the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, the trophy that goes to the women’s champion and was placed on a pedestal near the entrance to the court.

Keys didn’t break stride. Didn’t stop to stare. That bit of hardware then was placed near the net for the pre-match coin toss, close as can be to where the American stood. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel real. Also right there was her opponent, No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion at Melbourne Park, who would not make things easy on this cool, breezy evening.

Exactly 2 1/2 hours — and one 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 victory over Sabalenka — later, there was Keys, smiling the widest smile while holding that silver trophy with both hands, a Grand Slam champion for the first time at age 29. Keys was considered a future star before she was a teen, and this was her second chance to play for a major title: The first ended in a lopsided loss at the 2017 U.S. Open, an experience that taught her she would need to be able to play through nerves.

“From a pretty young age, I felt like if I never won a Grand Slam, then I wouldn’t have lived up to what people thought I should have been. That was a pretty heavy burden to kind of carry around,” said Keys, who reached her first major semifinal a decade ago in Australia .

“So I finally got to the point where I was proud of myself and proud of my career, with or without a Grand Slam. I finally got to the point where I was OK if it didn’t happen. I didn’t need it to feel like I had a good career or that I deserved to be talked about as a great tennis player,” she said.

Keys is the oldest woman to become a first-time Slam champ since Flavia Pennetta, who was 33 at the 2015 U.S. Open. This was Keys’ 46th Slam appearance.

Keys didn’t take an easy path, either.

Before this three-set victory came one against No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals, saving a match point along the way. Not since Serena Williams in 2005 had a player defeated both of the WTA’s top two women at Melbourne Park.

Keys, who is ranked 14th and seeded 19th, needed to prevent Sabalenka from earning what would have been her third trophy in a row at the Australian Open and her fourth major title overall.

Keys broke three times in the first set, helped in part by Sabalenka’s four double-faults and 13 total unforced errors. But don’t think this was merely an instance of Sabalenka being her own undoing.

For a stretch, it seemed as though every shot off the strings of Keys’ racket was landing precisely where she wanted.

Sabalenka went to the locker room before the second set, and whether that helped clear her head or slowed Keys’ momentum — or both — the final’s complexion soon changed. Keys’ first-serve percentage dipped from 86% in the first set to 59% in the second. Sabalenka raised her winner total from four in the first set to 13 in the second.

When she sent a backhand down the line to force an error by Keys for a break and a 2-1 lead in the second, Sabalenka shook her left fist and gritted her teeth. The action in the third set was tight and tense, without so much as a single break point until its final game, when Keys came through with one last forehand winner.

Here’s how close this was: Keys won just one more point than Sabalenka, 92-91. Both finished with 29 winners.