RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — American tennis star Madison Keys is so mad for the Olympics she wants to keep playing in the Games till she is a senior citizen.

“It’s unbelievable. If I could play in 12 Olympics, I’d play in 12 Olympics. Is there senior Olympics for tennis? There should be,” said the bubbly 21-year-old.

Seventh seed Keys made the third round yesterday with a gruelling three-hour, 7-5, 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/5) victory over Kristina Mladenovic of France.

And the Olympic debutante is full of admiration for the athletes who relentlessly train for the chance to shine just once every four years.

“It’s been great. For us it’s a little bit different, we have big events four times a year every year”, she added.

“But you see these people who have trained for four years for this moment, and that for me is so special and so great and so stressful, I don’t know how to handle it.”

Keys, who goes on to face Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro for a spot in the quarter-finals, insists she is a fan of the whole Olympic narrative.

That’s in stark contrast to the batch of big names who — for various reasons — opted out of the trip to Rio.

“I love like on TV when you get the whole back story and you go ‘Yesss’ and you’re crying as they’re going to race and you’re screaming ‘oh my God I love you, I’ve never met you but I know you’.

“You can’t even explain it because there is nothing like this.”

Unlike Keys, Mladenovic has endured a controversial Olympics.

She unleashed an angry tirade at her own tennis federation after she and top-ranked compatriot Caroline Garcia were dumped out of the women’s doubles in the first round.

They claimed the FFT had failed to inform them that they must play Olympic doubles in matching clothing.

Mladenovic had to lend a spare shirt to Garcia who then had to wear it inside out to camouflage the name of a sponsor.

The players have different kit sponsors and, therefore, arrived in Brazil with gear that did not match.

“Thanks to our tennis federation, they are so incompetent, to have ruined a moment so important in the careers of Caroline and me,” wrote Mladenovic on Twitter.

She also claimed that had she not have had a spare shirt in her bag, the pair could have been disqualified.

“Nearly got disqualified. Lot of unnecessary stress on both Kristina and I. Just trying to understand how FFT isn’t aware of the official rules,” Garcia posted.

Garcia was also knocked out of the singles on Monday, losing to Britain’s Johanna Konta 6-2, 6-3.