Serena suffers most lopsided loss of career against Konta
The tennis match was over almost before it had begun, and this time, Serena Williams was on the receiving end of the domination, experiencing the most lopsided loss of her career.
For the first time, Williams managed to win only one game in a professional match, holding serve in the first set and then being bulldozed by Johanna Konta, 6-1, 6-0, on Tuesday night in the first round of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, Calif. Konta is 48th in the world, according to the WTA rankings.
“I know I can play a zillion times better, so that kind of helps out, too. I have so many things on my mind I don’t have time to be shocked about a loss that clearly wasn’t at my best right now,” Williams said, via The Associated Press.
“When I was out there, (I) was fighting. That’s the only thing I can say. I wasn’t just, like, giving it away, and I was moving a lot better. So I’m just trying to take the positives out of it.”
Despite a run to the finals at Wimbledon, Williams — 26th in the WTA rankings — has struggled at times during her return to competitive tennis to reach her typical level of play. She gave birth to her first child by caesarean section last September and subsequently dealt with a litany of health issues, including a pulmonary embolism.
“It’s difficult, I guess,” she said Tuesday, speaking of her inability to regain her consistency and dominance. She then amended that comment: “Not, ‘I guess.’ For sure.”
Despite her 6-3, 6-3 loss to Angelique Kerber in the Wimbledon final, Williams appeared to gain some confidence in her game during that tournament, saying before the final, “This is not inevitable for me” after a 13-month absence from the tour.
“I didn’t know a couple of months ago where I was, where I would be, how I would do, how I would be able to come back,” she said after the Wimbledon loss. “It was such a long way to see light at the end of the road, kind of.
So I think these two weeks have really showed me that, OK, I can compete.”