Madison Keys Launches Kindness Wins Initiative

• Tennis News
• American Tennis

American tennis star Madison Keys has launched a new initiative, Kindness Wins, to embrace positivity and provide a platform to spread encouragement both within and outside the world of sports, according to Forbes magazine.

Speaking about the reason for her launching the initiative and the message she wants to spread, Keys says, "Kindness doesn’t have to be something super big. It can be the smallest thing, something super thoughtful. If we start trying to highlight that, it can help overtake the negativity we see in our day-to-day lives.

I wanted to be a bit more inclusive and spread the message further while still being able to include the middle school and high school age girls. It was definitely very hard for me not having my own sort of foundation, so I wanted to create something that pushed something I was very passionate about.

My new mission at this part of my life is to be a place where athletes, or anyone, can go if they don’t have their own foundation. It doesn’t have to just be my voice; it could be a lot of peoples’ voices.

For me, there are a lot of different ways of showing kindness. I think whether it is the smallest little thing at the beginning of the day like when someone holds the door for you or when people pay for your order in the drive-through.

These are all little moments of kindness." Keys has also been involved with FearlesslyGiRL initiative and says she is often touched by the messages she receives for some of the work she has been doing. "It just warms my heart that anyone would take three minutes of their day to write me a message that they appreciate me, love what I’m doing and encourage me to keep it up.

I can’t always respond, but to know there are people out there doing little things like that makes me feel really great about not only where social media can go, but if we all try to be a little kinder to each other, where the entire world can go”.

Keys is currently ranked No. 12 in the world and has been ranked as high as No. 7 in the rankings back in October 2016.