JO GAME PLAN IS A WINNER
JOHANNA KONTA’S coach Wim Fissette makes her learn tactics off by heart and recite them before matches at Wimbledon.
No player in the women’s draw has won a higher percentage of first sets this year than the British No.1 who, in nine Grand Slam matches, has lost the opening set just once.
That was against Serena Williams at the Australian Open and even in her shock French Open loss to Su-wei Hsieh, Konta claimed the first set 6-1.
Her fast starts are no fluke. She is prepared by Fissette and expected to commit every detail of her game-plan to memory.
In the minutes before she walks out on Court One today, to face Caroline Garcia in the last 16, she will be reciting her strategy.
Fissette said: “I text her the game plan the night before and she reads it.
“Five minutes before she goes out on court she repeats the messages back to me. If something is missing I tell her she has forgotten it, especially if it’s something important.
“You could say it is like a little exam and maybe a bit unusual but when she is 100 per cent clear about her intentions, that is when Jo plays her best matches.”
The Belgian has worked with Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Sabine Lisicki and Simona Halep in the past, but revealed Konta likes to keep things light.
He said: “We all tell jokes. Everybody is different.
“When I worked with Azarenka, two hours before her match she was in her zone. In that time, we are not talking any more.
“Kim was very relaxed before matches and Johanna is a bit like that. She is usually relaxed and we often joke and laugh. It is good for her mindset.”
Fissette’s former charges have all enjoyed a noticeable boost under his tutorship on grass and Konta has been no different.
The world No.7 had never gone further than round two before at Wimbledon but heading into the second week she is the bookies’ favourite for the title.
Fissette said: “On a good day Johanna can beat all the top players.
“She is only going to get better on grass so if not this year maybe next.” A MIDDLE Sunday stroll around the empty grounds of SW19 can be a surreal experience.
It feels almost as if time has been frozen or the world has reached an end without bothering to let anyone else know about it.
The vast swathe of outside courts – bustling battlefields over the last seven days – lie empty and bare, stripped even of their nets.
There’s not a soul on Henman Hill, which has been a heaving slope of noise and Pimm’s drinking since the big gates first swung open last Monday morning.
For 24 hours Wimbledon is shut down like a perfectly preserved immaculate ghost town.
Were it not for the distant rumble of a groundsman’s lawnmower, the occasional thwack of ball on racquet echoing around from the practice grounds or the drip-dropping from the hanging baskets of freshly watered petunias, there is hardly any sign of life inside these walls.
But this eerie phenomenon is only the calm before the storm that’s known as Manic Monday.
Today all 32 of the men and women who are still going for glory here this summer will be dotted around various parts of these sprawling grounds, slugging it out for a place in the quarter-finals.
And at the epicentre Andy Murray will go head to head with a whirlwind of a Frenchman who has been rampaging around the extremities of this place for years – and has left the scars to prove it.
At the age of 26, and despite six previous visits, Benoit Paire has not made much of a name for himself at this place. Never before has he made it this far, beyond middle Sunday.
But when this bearded maverick is finally unleashed on Centre Court this afternoon it is reasonable to assume anything might happen.
If you thought Murray’s opponent on Friday night, the Italian hothead Fabio Fognini, was a bit of a livewire then prepare yourself for Paire and all his raging, eccentric glory.
Kicked out of the French Davis Cup team for his arrogant attitude then booted out of the Olympics last summer too, Paire has left a trail of destruction behind him