Miami: Johanna Konta’s days of flying under the radar are numbered now that the Briton has bagged her biggest title yet at the Miami Open.
The 25-year-old will rise to a career-high seventh in the world rankings next week after a start to the year in which she won in Sydney, reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and then claimed her first premier mandatory tournament on the hard courts of Key Biscayne.
Konta recently noted that the success of world number one Andy Murray in the men’s game has kept the attention and pressure of the media and fans in Britain away from her, but she can be sure that the level of expectation will rise sharply ahead of this year’s Wimbledon.
Former leading British women’s player Sam Smith, now a television analyst, told AFP that while Konta may not yet be aware of how her status in British sport is about to change, she is confident Konta can handle what is coming her way.
“Someone needs to tell her ‘Jo it is going to be different’ but you know what, I think she will handle it. I think she will probably speak to Andy as well, because it is going to be really big if she continues this upward progression,” Smith said.
Murray’s advice, if requested, will no doubt be forthcoming and, given the Scotsman has come through years of hype around Wimbledon, sage.
Smith’s confidence in Konta’s ability to cope with the attention is largely based on the Sydney-born player’s evident intelligence, professionalism and calmness.
But those qualities, essential though they are, do not weaken in any way Konta’s drive and ambition to get to the very top in the sport.
“I think I’ve always had the belief of wanting to become a Grand Slam champion, wanting to become the best in the world,” Konta said after downing former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets 6-4, 6-3 in the Miami final on Saturday.
Konta, who beat Venus Williams in the semis, began superbly, breaking to love in the opening game before Wozniacki swiftly broke back to level at 2-2.
After another break each, the Briton took advantage of two double-faults from the Dane to break to 5-4 and serve out for the set.
There was a similar pattern to the start of the second set, with the pair exchanging breaks in the first two game. The key moment came when Konta broke to go 4-3 up, with a little help from the net cord.
Clearly full of confidence, Konta then broke again, with a lob on match-point, to secure the biggest win of her career and the best by a British woman since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.
She added of her Grand Slam goals: “I think that stays throughout, with every player I imagine, their career. Without that, I don’t think it makes the victories as sweet or, I think, the defeats as motivating. I think that stays.
“Then it’s about keeping things simple and working for me,” she added. “I just want to work and try to really bring out in myself the most that I have. Wherever that gets me that’s where it will get me, but hopefully the day I hang up my racquets I will be able to say that I really maximised my full ability and gave everything inside me.”
While the WTA Tour has no shortage of players who shone as teenagers and quickly faded, Konta’s rise has been a gradual one, but she sees no reason why that should limit her chances of succeeding at the very top.
“I think as tennis is progressing and becoming more physical (development) has become later and later,” she said.
“I wasn’t a bad junior either. I got to 11 in the world. I don’t think it was that much of an anomaly. I think I just kept doing what I love, and that’s working hard.
“I was very fortunate that throughout the years I’ve managed to have some very, very good people around me.
“I think the more I was able to absorb from them, their knowledge and wisdom, and the more I was able to reinvest that into the matches that I played, and on a consistent basis, I think that’s part of reason I’m here now,” she said.
Perhaps Murray, with his understanding of the pressures of expectations, will provide some more of that knowledge and wisdom that Konta is clearly benefiting from.
