The British number one was competing in her first WTA Tour final in California having impressively seen off Dominika Cibulkov in the last round but showed no signs of nerves as she defeated seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams. I knew going into it I was going to be playing against a magnitude of experience. “She played so well and all of her balls were landing today”, said Williams.
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“Just because it’s 4-1 doesn’t mean the match is over; it’s not a favourable scoreline if you happen to be down, but it’s not over”.
“It’s quite an incredibly humbling experience”.
A Williams backhand sailed wide to give Konta another break and the opportunity to serve for the match.
“It’s a validation of all the hard work you’ve already put in and a motivator on the things you want to keep improving on, and the lengths you might go to in order to become that much better at your discipline”.
But a superb backhand victor from third seed Konta saw her break back immediately and Willimas was wide with a backhand as Konta served out for the set at 7-5. “What can I say but give her credit”. However, the world No18 responded in kind leaving her to serve for the set again and this time she made no mistake, winning the game to love.
The way the first set ended and the second set started, it looked as if three sets would not be necessary.
Over the two hour, 18 minute match, third seed Konta figured out Williams’ big serve for the second time this year, standing some 10 feet behind the baseline to return it and generating pace from Williams’ regular serves of well higher than 100mp/h.
“She plays really well against me”, Williams said. She played really well in Australia.
Despite a much thinner resume than her famed opponent, Konta, 25, had rocketed into the top 20 over the past year.
At 4-5 and with her game creaking, Konta called her coach, José-Manuel Garcia, on to court and his words seemed to have some effect as she managed to save two set points in the next game.
With that she rises to around 14 in the ranking, she denied Williams her 50 career title, and is the oldest player to win a Premier-level title from her first career final since Tsvetana Pironkova in Sydney in 2014. There is no sudden click, no magic potion.
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Sunday, she finally had a championship.
