Tennis star and Rock Island native Madison Keys returned home to help empower girls. The 21-year-old is ranked 8th in the world by the Women's Tennis Association. She's also the newest ambassador for FearlesslyGiRL, a leadership organization that hosts summits in schools for girls throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Keys hosted her first summit Tuesday at Rock Island High School. She talked with students about problems they face and ways to overcome them.
"Being a tennis player, I always felt really isolated and felt like nobody would understand," Keys says. "And then as I got older and started reaching out to different friends, and not only tennis players, I realized a lot of us go through the same things no matter what we're doing."
Last month, Keys lost in the finals of the WTA tournament in Singapore. Even though she's not in school, she has the same frustration and anxieties that other girls do.
"Being able to talk about it just helps us get through those things and I just hope to come across as authentic and real as I can possibly be and be really open so they will feel comfortable doing the same," she says.
Keys won her second WTA title at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham in June, broke into the top 10 for the first time in her career over the summer and represented Team USA at the Olympics in Rio.