This was a big chance but she can come again
THE great and the good from the days when Britain regularly produced champions and contenders were there in a line, two rows back in the Centre Court members’ area.
Virginia Wade, Angela Mortimer, Roger Taylor, Ann Jones, Christine Truman. Not one of them a day under 70, but all possibly wondering if they might get out there and have another go.
For this has been tennis’s Year of the Oldie, and the way Venus Williams is going it looks like she might still be challenging for trophies when eligible for free public transport.
It is quite conceivable that we may end up with Wimbledon singles champions this year aged 35 and 37. Roger Federer and Williams have already contested Grand Slam finals in 2017, at the Australian Open.
What this will not be the year of, after all, is a British champion.
Andy Murray hobbled away from Centre Court on Wednesday nesday and Jo Konta could not wait to get off yesterday,ay, leaving with almost t indecent haste after the most perfunctory of handshakes.
But then Konta will have known what a missed opportunity this was, and that there are no guaranteess these will come around nd too often.
When Laura Robsonn made the last 16 as a teenager in 2013, losing to the beatable Kaia Kanepi, she probably thought there would be many more similar openings. She has not won a singles match at Wimbledon since. Even when the chances come sooner than expected, you have to somehow try to take them.
Twenty-five forehand errors was never going to get the job done for Konta yesterday, and however much that stroke has been shored up, Williams knew it would be prone to being attacked under pressure.
Williams deservedly won, although it says something about the dearth of true star quality in women’s tennis that anyone aged 37 should make two Slam finals from three.
This is among the reasons that Konta should be anything but despondent. The watching Wade knows better than anyone that persistence will be key. It took her until 32 to win the title that had been touted as her destiny, on the 16th attempt.
And that came nearly nine years after she had already won the US Open.
We are in a different era now, but Konta’s career trajectory has still been strikingly different. She was not even ranked high enough to play in Grand Slam main draws until two years ago, so even at 26 her career at the very elite level is still in its relative infancy.
Her run to the semi-finals here has elevated her to No 5 in the 12-month rankings and she also stands fifth based purely on 2017 results alone, helped by a run to the quarter-finals in Australia and the biggbiggest title of her career in MMiami. LLook at the names araround her and there iis nothing that should frighten her too much, once handling occasions like yesterday’s becomes mmore familiar. The way some pepeople are talking, it sousounds like it is a given that thet others are merely keeping thet champion’s place at the head of the table warm until Serena Williams, winner of 23 Grand Slam titles, comes back from having a baby.
It is surely far less certain than that for Serena, who turns 36 in September. Victoria Azarenka, a former No 1 who is making the same journey after giving birth in December, has shown in recent weeks that regaining past glories is not necessarily something that can be achieved automatically or quickly. She reached the fourth round here, her first major tournament since returning.
Konta departs £550,000 richer from her exertions here, and her trip to Dublin to watch U2 will be small change. She will probably view the experience as priceless, and the same could be said of her first proper run at Wimbledon.