The comforts of home
Konta the first British woman in semis in 39 years
Because fashion sensibilities these days apparently dictate that female tennis players should wear the stretchiest, clingiest outfits imaginable, contouring every indented belly button, we can clearly see the pant-pant-pant of a rib cage expanding and contracting.
Thus the straining labours of Johanna Konta and Simona Halep were profoundly visible in their riveting quarter-final match Tuesday.
While the women somehow managed, mostly, to keep the tension out of their faces — Konta reflexively tightening her ponytail and Halep tugging at her boy-shorts in moments of keen stress — they showed chauvinists of the game that distaff tennis is just as gobsmacking rousing as anything the men can offer.
This was a lulu of an encounter on centre court, where too many marquee women’s matches have not been played, with Konta emerging triumphant in three sets against the pocket-sized Romanian. Fivefoot-six passes for pocket-sized as long-legged specimens increasingly define female tennis.
Regardless of dimensions, these were two extremely fit, strong and agile athletes going head-to-head and will-to-will in a match separated by a handful of converted break points, with neither conceding an inch.
Halep was the more wide-ranging retriever, Konta the more potent server.
The 26-year-old Konta —who was born in Sydney to Hungarian parents, relocated to Barcelona to hone her skills, immigrated to London with her family in 2005, and acquired citizenship seven years later — became the first British woman in nearly four decades to reach the semis at Wimbledon.
The last, Virginia Wade, who accomplished the feat 39 years ago, watched events unfold yesterday from the Royal Box.
It was not the women’s tennis of 1978. You’ve come a long way, baby. Just don’t call her baby.
A shame, though, that so stirring a match ended with a dollop of controversy when, on what would be the final point in Konta’s 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4 victory, a (female) moron in the stands let loose an ear-piercing shriek. Halep appeared to stop playing, simply swatting the ball into the net, rather than trying to drive her shot into the open corner. Konta was confused. They both stood there, befuddled, before coming to the net and shaking hands. Anticlimactic for Konta, who deserved a better celebratory instant, and unfair to Halep, though she made no fuss and didn’t seek a replay of the point.
“No, I thought he’s going to repeat the point,” Halep told reporters afterwards, referring to chair umpire Kader Nouni, the Frenchman who has become the hunk of the tournament for smitten TV viewers, tagged the Barry White of the courts for his seductive baritone, especially when he croons “love-all.”
“I think it’s normal to repeat the point when someone is screaming like that.” Halep accepted her fate. “Yeah, he said, we cannot replay. I cannot change anything. So why should I fight?”
By that point, literally and figuratively, Halep seemed ready to lay down her racquet in defeat, broken in the fifth game of the set, facing an opponent who simply was not going to be denied on the biggest stage of her life, in front of a noisily partisan audience.
Fate has not been kind to Halep in recent months.
While in the top 10 for three-anda-half years, she has yet to win a grand slam. In March, after losing to Konta in the Miami Open, Halep was essentially fired by her own coach, though they later reconciled. More shattering was the stunning upset last month to 20-year-old upstart Jelena Ostapenko in the French Open, a match Halep was leading by a set and 3-0.
The 25-year-old, No. 2 in the world, pulled herself together commendably, not dropping a set at SW19 and dismantling former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the round of 16. But she is again an also-ran.
“I think was close to the best, may- be the best,” Halep said of the match she played yesterday.
“My level was pretty high. I take the positives.”
Still, she would have, for the first time, ascended to the world No. 1 ranking if she had made the final.
Konta, seeded sixth and ranked seventh in the world, acquitted herself much more commandingly than that, her game doubtless sharpened by a couple of hardfought earlier matches and certainly boosted by the adoring crowd. Konta is a tremendously self-contained individual who’s been gently admonished in the past, even by compatriot Andy Murray, for perhaps not showing enough emotion on the court.
But that’s just who she is, intensely focussed and devoted to “the process.” After all, it’s the mien which has taken her from couch-surfing at friends’ homes during her bleaker years to a “mind guru” — a sports psychologist who later committed suicide — to within one win of at least 1.1 million pounds as a finalist, 2.2 million pounds if she captures the title.
Konta has to get through five-time champion Venus Williams in the semis first, however.
“What Venus and her sister have given our sport is absolutely tremendous,” Konta said last night. “The way they’ve elevated women’s tennis is truly inspiring. I feel very excited and very humbled to be sharing the court with her again.”
Konta was on the brink of elimination yesterday. She dropped the first-set tiebreak and was two points from defeat in the second frame before surging back.
In the second set tiebreaker, Konta recovered from 3-1 down, forcing a decider with a marvelous forehead to the corner that left Halep sprawling.
In the final set, Konta scarcely blinked. Two service games were held to love.
Looking almost shell-shocked at her post-match press conference, Konta attempted to address the mental fortitude she’s methodically cultivated, through the years when there was little tangible effect.
“As any professional athlete, there’s always a massive amount of sacrifice that comes along with trying to reach the pinnacle of your sport.
“So it was more a face of dissociating myself from that. What’s the word for it? I guess it was more of not associating myself with where I was ranked or what my result was but truly seeing my career as being the best that I can be, what that was going to bring me ranking-wise, results-wise. It was more enjoying the fact that I get to try actually every day to be better.’’
Laughing: “I don’t know if I explained that well. But I tried.”
She doesn’t need to explain in words. Her tennis is articulate.