“I am just overwhelmingly happy”, said Konta, who collapsed on court midway through her previous match against Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova before recovering to win 6-2 5-7 6-2.
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Konta’s itinerary since Wimbledon has certainly been relentless, starting with her first WTA title in Stanford, California, and continuing through deep runs in Montreal and the Olympic event in Rio. “So if I look at it like that, I do think I did the best that I could today”.
Konta fought back to 5-5 from 4-1 down in the second set and saved two match points before Sevastova broke her serve again to clinch a last eight place. I’m out there to play my sport, to showcase my sport. At the beginning of the tournament I didn’t expect quarterfinal, because also my body wasn’t so good. I feel well enough to play. On both occasions, she dipped at the crucial moment.
At No. 99 the lowest ranked player to make it through to the last 16, Tsurenko represented a tricky test for last year’s U.S. Open runner-up having knocked off 12th seed Dominika Cibulkova and 21st seed Irina-Camelia Begu to get to the fourth round. Konta did not serve as well as she can and with Sevastova hitting some scorching returns the Briton was broken seven times.
But, after the 74th-ranked Dane sealed her 6-3, 6-4 fourth-round victory over world No. 8 Madison Keys on Sunday, she clarified that such feelings should not be interpreted as surprise.
“My opponent played an overall more solid match than I did”, Konta said. “I honestly did a good job in managing what I did have, and I really gave my best”.
She had a similar instance some years back and knew what to do to cope with it. “I knew straight away that I needed to get ice on myself, try to get my breathing down, calm myself down and in turn my muscles and my heart calmed down as well”, she said. The Latvian did show brief signs of a limp, after jumping out to a 3-0 lead (mainly through a few gifts from Konta) and then allowing the score to be dragged back to 3-3. With the errors now flowing, Sevastova failed to take two break point opportunities, though another error by the Brit handed the Latvian another break point, which she took with a forehand victor. Sevastova, who returned to competition past year after retiring in 2013 following a succession of injuries, had never gone beyond the second round in her three previous visits to Flushing Meadows, the last of which was in 2011. Mentally I’m spent. Totally spent.
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“I didn’t play the tennis level that I maybe would have liked to have played, but I competed the best I could”. I still can not believe it.
