Johanna Konta arrives in Melbourne this weekend as happy and confident at 25 as she can ever have been in a career that has dipped and soared like an artist’s brush across a canvas.
A player who for a worryingly long time was simultaneously enigmatic, talented and a nervous wreck has thrust herself into the upper echelons of her sport, freshly crowned as champion of Sydney, the city where she was born, and well aware she is good enough to win the Australian Open.
“She was just playing unbelievable tennis from the beginning until the end,” said Agnieszka Radwanska, the estimable Pole who could take only six games off the British No1 in an hour and 22 minutes of the Sydney Open final on Friday.
“Normally, you’re thinking on the court that she can’t play like this the whole match and she’s going to have a couple of games where she plays worse. But she didn’t. She was just playing the whole match so aggressive, with pretty much everything in, and I couldn’t do much. I was doing everything right and hitting the ball well but it was coming back better and better.
“I can’t even be angry with myself. What she was doing was unbelievable. It went too fast. Even when I started serving better, the ball was coming back stronger. Well done to her. I was playing good but she was playing amazing tennis and so aggressive, hitting it very deep, I couldn’t do much.”
Konta identifies her surge to No9 in the world – to be confirmed on Monday – as linked to a steady rise of self-belief, from drowning in the 700s of the rankings a couple of years ago to holding her own against the game’s best on the eve of the first major of 2017. She beat the resurgent Canadian Eugenie Bouchard out of sight in the Sydney semi-finals and her win over Radwanska completed surely the best consecutive performances of her career.
Like Bouchard, Radwanska, who beat Konta in their two matches last year, in Beijing and Cincinnati, and is regarded as one of the most adaptable and intelligent players on the circuit, could not find a meaningful reply to her precision and power. If Konta’s form holds in the opening round in Melbourne, it is unlikely the respected but inconsistent Belgian, Kirsten Flipkens, will be able to do much better.
Konta has in her corner a coach, Wim Fissette, who knows his compatriot Flipkens better than most. He has proved to be an inspiring guide in their short time together and in the break between sets on Friday simply said to her: “If you’re going to go for it, go for it.” Konta could hardly have delivered more spectacularly on those instructions. It had been that way almost from her first match.
In a week she will not easily forget, Konta dropped a mere 29 games in winning five matches in straight sets. No British player had won this title since Jo Durie in 1983 and none deserved it more. Konta has won 22 of her past 27 matches and reached the semi‑finals or better in four of her past five tournaments. That is crazily consistent. This is her second WTA title. It is unlikely to be her last.
“Each match I was playing, I was thinking a little more clearly and was getting that much more match-tight,” she said, adding with self-deprecation that those who know her well will recognise, “overall, I was very happy with the match I played.”
Her groundstrokes on both wings, were devastating and she hardly twitched when going for the lines. Her serve was accurate, strong and intelligent. Her nerve held throughout and her demeanour was as calm as a lagoon on a summer’s day.
“I definitely maintained a high level throughout and I made it very difficult for her to do much,” she said. “Going into any match against Aga, I knew it had to be nothing short of what it was today if I was to have a chance of coming through.”
However, the challenges intensify now. The Australian Open is an altogether different scenario. Champions lurk everywhere, young, not so young and old.
Angelique Kerber, 29 and out of sorts, has pride and a title to defend; Serena Williams, 35 and dethroned by the German, has pride and history to reach for, needing one more major to post her 23rd and consign Steffi Graf to second place on the all-time list. It is a tournament loaded with possibilities.
If Konta gets past Flipkens, she may need to beat one of the most vibrant new talents in the game, Naomi Osaka, then either Caroline Wozniacki, who has rediscovered her verve and resilience, the former finalist Dominika Cibulkova … then Williams in the quarter-finals. If she does to the great American what Heather Watson almost did a few years ago at Wimbledon, her semi-final opponent could well be Radwanska.
She will be thinking of none of those options but the first one. After years of suffering in the wilderness, that has become Konta’s singular strength: an ability to stay in the only moment that matters. She did it to stunning effect in two matches at the end of the Sydney tournament that left her rivals awe-struck, most notably Radwanska, who is not easily impressed.
Watson should dent home ambitions by beating the woefully out-of-form Sam Stosur in the first round in the other quarter of the draw on that side, but may struggle if she gets as far as the third round, where Elena Vesnina will likely be waiting. Naomi Broady is also in the section but the Australian Daria Gavrilova might have too many tricks for her in the opening round.
It is a thin British representation but one led by perhaps the most impressive British player since Durie.
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