At 30 years old, Madison Keys is playing the tennis of her life and has unlocked a new dimension of her game, both mentally and technically.

She secured a maiden Grand Slam title in Melbourne a few months ago in spectacular fashion, ousting Elena Rybakina, Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka en route.

Ranked a career-high No.5 in the world, Keys has little to complain about, especially after advancing to her fifth quarter-final of the year, from seven tournaments contested so far.

“At this point, I’m trying to enjoy myself on the court and stay super present and just keep playing really good tennis as everyone keeps calling me a veteran,” Keys told reporters at the Caja Magica on Wednesday, after she booked a highly-anticipated last-eight showdown with defending champion Swiatek.

As she continues to reach new heights, is the No.1 ranking on Keys’ radar?

“To be honest, I’ve never liked to have a ranking goal. It’s really been hard for me to kind of to not get too obsessed with winning and losing when that’s my goal,” she explained.

“The fact that I’m at a career high has kind of already been a bonus for me. It was definitely not something that I thought was going to happen later in life. So I’m kind of really just going with it.”

Keys made a bold decision end of last year and changed her racquet and switched from gut strings to all polyester, which she says has been particularly helpful managing the altitude and conditions in Madrid.

“I think that I’m getting more comfortable with it. I also think it really helps not have gut in my racket anymore. I feel like gut and altitude, it can be great, can be terrible. So I think kind of using an all-poly has definitely helped me as well,” she said.

The American was a semi-finalist in the Spanish capital last year, where she lost to Swiatek, and will be looking to return to the final four at the expense of the defending champion.

Keys is 2-4 head-to-head against Swiatek, but can draw lots of confidence from her victory over the world No.2 at the Australian Open last January.

She is well aware though that taking on Swiatek on clay can be the ultimate challenge.

“I think obviously you look at matches that you won and you figure out why you won them and you look at matches why you lost and you try to figure out what you did wrong or what she did really well that day and then you try to come up with a game plan,” said Keys of her approach to the Swiatek clash.

“I think obviously it’s a little bit different when you’re on a surface that she loves and she does really well on and all of that. I think you have to take that into account and just kind of go one step further with that and just try to figure out how do you kind of elevate your game a little bit more because I think you have to.”

Keys punched her ticket to the quarter-finals with a convincing 6-2, 6-3 victory over Donna Vekic on Tuesday that lasted just 76 minutes.

The win saw Keys improve to 23-4 win-loss for the season, following title runs in Adelaide and Melbourne, and a semi-final appearance at Indian Wells.

Keys admits that being a Grand Slam champion this late in her career has required some adjustment.

“I think the biggest thing that kind of surprised me is that it took a little while to feel comfortable again. And I was thinking about it the other day because it’s a first in my career for the first time in a really long time,” she reflected.

“It’s been many, many years since I’ve had to ever walk into a tournament and feel like there was something different.

“So that took a little bit of getting used to and I definitely felt like kind of through Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston. I just felt a little bit uncertain or I was pressing a little bit more and just was putting more pressure on myself. But it just took a little bit of time to kind of get used to it and resettle and I feel like I’ve done a good job here so far.”