Bang, bang, bang! Killer Konta blows Sloane away

Barely two months ago, Jo Konta was standing in the bowels of the Miami Dolphins stadium, desolate after being routed by Chinese player Qiang Wang.

Having lost the last 10 games of the match in the Miami Open second round, she admitted: ‘I’ve come off court feeling quite down about it. I’ve just got to keep going.’

Nobody would have quibbled back then with the token odds of her winning the French Open being somewhere around 150-1.

She entered the clay-court season ranked 47 in the world, with little prospect of anything but the chance of a few morale-boosting wins ahead of the more favourable prospect of playing on grass.

Now, all of a sudden, she is being talked about as a potential Sports Personality of the year.

By the middle of yesterday afternoon she was beaming from ear to ear and understandably so. In hammering last year’s beaten finalist Sloane Stephens 6-1, 6-4, Konta had played the match of her career.

For the third time, she is one match from reaching a Grand Slam final, in the last place you thought it would happen. While she will have to deal with a rise in expectation levels, Konta will be the favourite to beat Czech Marketa Vondrousova, 19, and make it through to Saturday’s climax of the women’s singles.

The likely champion remains title-holder Simona Halep, who is in the other half of the draw and due to face american teenager amanda anisimova today.

yet Konta is moving along serenely and that slightly odd, elephant trunk-like motion that sets up her service is producing spectacular results.

It utterly demoralised Stephens yesterday. The British No 1 claimed 20 out of 21 points on her serve in the second set, rattling off 18 in succession before a solitary double fault put the tiniest blight on an otherwise dazzling display.

She has replicated the effort of Jo Durie, who 36 years ago defeated Tracy austin here to make the last four. austin was among those watching yesterday, on duty for america’s Tennis Channel.

‘I was wondering if Jo was going to get tight when she came out to serve for it at 5-4,’ said austin later. ‘But she had new balls and just went bang, bang, bang!’

It turns out that British tennis — which cannot muster even one representative in the junior singles events here this week — was blessed that Konta landed in the UK half her lifetime ago when she was 14. She has gone on to become the first GB player since Virginia Wade to make the semi- final of three different majors.

Her parents, Gabor and Gabriella, are back in england working in their respective jobs in the hotel business and as a dentist, but they might make it out here if their daughter reaches the final.

To do that, she will need to beat Vondrousova, the world No 38, who she defeated at the Italian Open less than three weeks ago.

While little-known beyond keen followers of the sport, Vondrousova has been identified as a potential star for some time and it is easy to see why. a left-hander, she is an extremely creative player in the best tradition of the Czechs, with a large repertoire of shots. She boasts an impressive 27-6 match record this year and will present a very different challenge to Stephens.

But a Grand Slam semi-final is new territory for a player who began the season ranked 67 in the world. another strong performance will be needed to beat her.

Stephens, who can be somewhat prickly, gave plenty of credit to Konta after the beating she received, although she did made an observation to mitigate the result.

The wind had blown a fair amount of the clay off the court, making the surface quite bare and speeding up the conditions.

‘She likes to play on hard court and grass and the court was very fast,’ said Stephens. ‘That worked in her favour. For someone who has a big game like that, who serves well and looks to hit the first ball of the rally, it kind of works for them.

‘But she served well, she executed a good game plan and that’s what you have to do to win. I didn’t get a chance to really get into the match.’

an eight-minute first game, in which Konta faced a break point, was as good as it got for the american. By the fourth game Konta was ripping winners off the return as part of a devastating run which saw her take seven straight games.

She seized the initiative early in rallies and the wall-like retrieving qualities of Stephens were unable to resist the onslaught as her body language began to flag.

When she is taking the ball early and finding the corners, Konta can look unplayable.

This win recalled the beating she gave to Caroline Wozniacki en route to the australian Open semi-final in 2017.

Konta is unlikely to get a better chance to win here than the one which now presents itself — provided she doesn’t blink.