JO BLOWN AWAY BY PACE ATTACK
Bodyline tactics from Venus leave Konta feeling stumped
There were moments when it more resembled the brutality of Bodyline, or those Caribbean cricket tours in the 1970s and 80s, Johanna Konta hopping about like a besieged opening batsman.
One serve reared up on her and she could only fend it off; another sizzled past with such ferocity, she turned face and flinched. It wasn’t that Konta played particularly poorly, more that she could not meet the extraordinary level set by her opponent. Venus Williams’s experience showed. So did her game management and courage, the ferocious intensity beyond that charming, honeyed exterior.
She took Konta’s first serves on the baseline, her second serves a step or two inside. The ball snapped back across the net quicker and harder than Konta had experienced all tournament. For that reason her timing often looked off. Williams, in moments, appeared half her age; Konta looked pretty one- dimensional for such a big occasion.
Maybe she is, for now. We cannot forget where Konta was a year or so ago. Most had her pegged as a top-100 player, maybe top 50. Few expected her to be where she is now, heading for the world’s top five, the new darling of British tennis; a ray of sunshine with Andy Murray’s physical exertions catching up with him. Konta has flown the flag at Wimbledon until deep into week two, before coming up short against a superior opponent.
Tim henman did that for years and got a part of the grounds named after him. What happened yesterday was no disgrace.
It was more balanced than the margins suggest. In the ninth game of the first set, Konta had two break points. had she taken them, she would have served for the set.
Instead, she allowed Williams back in, and what followed changed the match. From trailing 15-40, Williams won 12 of the next 13 points. That was enough to save her service game, break Konta’s, win the set 6-4 and take the first game of the second set to love.
Williams barely looked back. She won the match with a sublime forehand pass after one hour and 14 minutes, having not been broken in either set, and in the second not even close. Konta never took more than two points off Williams’s serve before succumbing 6-2.
Konta was nothing if not honest. ‘Venus dictated the match from the first ball to the last ball,’ she admitted. ‘She showed why she is a fivetime champion here. She plays with a lot of depth, a lot of speed and you don’t get much chance to get a grip on the points. A lot of times, you are just at her mercy.’
It looked like a player who had never been past Wimbledon’s second round against one who will now play her ninth final.
Williams is a 37-year-old woman with a debilitating auto-immune condition called Sjogren’s syndrome. To put that into perspective, Sjogren’s is often mistaken for chronic fatigue. For Williams to play through this, for her to take on, and beat, rivals who were in kindergarten when she played her first Wimbledon is stunning.
‘I had a lot of issues,’ she said, with mighty understatement. Konta is known for her athleticism, but Williams was her match.
It was speculated that Konta had a chance if she could move Williams around the court but, frequently, those roles were reversed. When she did try it, Williams’s wingspan made up for the ground her feet could no longer cover. If anything, one came away as much in awe of the absent Williams sister, Serena, for the way she so regularly triumphed in the family battles. Looking at Venus yesterday, one could see how it took a member of her own gene pool to stop her.
The way Williams made her serve count was magnificent, too. Konta beat her 7-1 on aces and got a higher percentage of first serves in. Yet when Williams’s serve delivered, she was devastating: she won 79 per cent of points when it landed. And there was incredible bravery in her game. At the pivotal point in the first set, fighting to hold her service game, she delivered a second serve at 106 mph. Few women would have gone for it in that way.
‘When I look across the net, I refuse to believe in that person more than me,’ Williams said. She has a way of delivering messages of utter defiance, quite sweetly. For Konta, time is on her side. her greatest match in this tournament was against Simona halep in the quarter-final, when she drew on reserves of stamina and nerve few thought she possessed.
Williams will not be around for ever, and against a lesser opponent Konta might have been allowed to get into that groove again. Williams was too smart. She knew what she was doing all along, even winning a stand- off with a wasp before making her first serve of the game, moving away and fixing it with a hard stare rather than flailing her arms wildly. The wasp wisely got the message and buzzed off.
She had to play the crowd, too. Not as a full-blown villain, of course — the locals are far too polite to make anyone feel truly unwelcome — but it must have been strange not to feel the usual love. Wimbledon adores Venus. They will be rooting for her in the final. Yet she was never going to win the public vote with Konta in the house. The roar that greeted a big forehand to win a point in the first game — 40-15 — was startling. It took Murray many years to get that level of affection.
‘It was nice to be in their embrace,’ said Konta, but her first thought on losing better told the story of the day. ‘What went through your mind?’ Konta was asked. ‘Damn. I’m done,’ she replied.