KONTA THE SLAM QUEEN
Jo storms into the last eight as she holds nerve in a decider yet again
Hardly anyone walks the tightrope of a deciding set as well as Jo Konta has this year — and she did so once again last night to make the last eight of the US Open.
at 5-5 in the third set, it was No 3 seed Karolina Pliskova who cracked, marginally kept waiting to serve by the British No 1 changing her sweatbands.
It was enough time for the rangy Czech to start thinking a little too much and she suddenly threw in an error-strewn game to get broken and go on to lose this fourth-round tie 6-7, 6-3, 7-5 in two hours and 20 minutes.
Having clinched her 17th deciding set out of 20 in 2019, Konta becomes the first British woman since Jo durie in 1983 to make the quarter-finals at Flushing Meadows.
She was awaiting the winner of last night’s match between fifth seed Elina Svitolina and No 10 Madison Keys of the United States.
after a strangely undulating encounter full of unexpected twists, Konta had managed to finally draw the sting from the serve of Pliskova. The Czech continues to be the best female player never to have won a Major.
Konta said: ‘I just tried to keep going. With Karolina, there are going to be portions of the match when I don’t know what I’m doing out there.
‘I’m just so pleased to have played a great match, really happy.
‘I’ve got to the fourth round here twice before and to go one step further is massive. I want to go two or three steps further now.’ Whatever the outcome, Konta now has a full house of quarterfinals at Grand Slams — a remarkable effort for someone who did not even break into the top 100 until 2015, aged nearly 24. She has made this stage or better at the last three majors and stands back on the cusp of the world’s top 10. It was her best win since beating Simona Halep at Wimbledon two years ago. Konta continues to relish the big occasions. Having clawed her way back into this match, she always looked the more likely to hold her nerve as the tension ratcheted up.
Sitting in her courtside box again was her new-found celebrity fan Tom Hiddleston, swapping his drama on Broadway for another out in Queen’s.
Pliskova buckled completely in the 11th game of the decider, missing a simple volley and poking a forehand long when it looked harder to lose the point.
Konta, in turn, became nervous and faced a break point when serving for the match. But she hit a forehand winner to save herself and then gratefully accepted one last error from Pliskova, who made 39 of the unforced variety to off-set her 16 aces.
Battersea-based Konta will have been wondering how she did not win the first set after opening up by dominating an opponent whose serve is second only to Serena Williams’s in the women’s game.
It was a blistering start, breaking her nervous-looking 6ft 1in opponent to love to move ahead in front of a lunchtime crowd in the recently expanded louis armstrong Stadium.
In fact, Konta could easily have won the first five games as the chances kept coming and the Brit threatened to have one of those days that saw her obliterate Sloane Stephens at the French Open.
While a few openings were squandered by her own hand, the majority were saved by Pliskova slamming down effortless first serves around the 110mph mark — eight aces mixed with four double faults in the first set.
Konta’s first poor game came when she tried to serve for the opener at 5-4, with the No 3 seed increasingly finding her timing off those long levers she possesses.
In the tiebreak, Pliskova dictated with her first serve to romp home 7-1, leaving Konta to stew at the changeover about missed opportunities.
When Pliskova broke early in the second set, the match looked to be heading to a predictable end, only for Konta to spark up once again and rediscover the ability to take the ball early and rush her opponent.
a desperately tight third set unfolded, sharply in contrast to the first two.
The 28-year-old Konta had every reason to be confident, given her record at the death this season, and that extra belief proved to be the difference in the end.