Konta crashes out against world No 109
It seems extraordinary that a player could become a top-10 regular without ever having won a maindraw match at Roland Garros. But after yesterday’s defeat at the hands of world No 109 Su-wei Hsieh, that is the status of Johanna Konta.
On paper, Hseih had looked like an ideal first-round opponent. A tiny woman by the standards of the Amazons who dominate modern tennis, she is a doubles specialist who uses guile and touch to redirect the ball in unexpected ways. Had the match been played on a hard court, she would have been cannon fodder.
But the Parisian clay behaves very differently. For Konta, it might as well be quicksand. She did hit plenty of heavy, scudding groundstrokes, but Hsieh would scamper after the ball like a terrier and chip it back. Then, as the Briton moved up for the kill, she struggled to find a solid footing on the slippery granules. Time and again, she blared her put-away yards out of court.
The other giveaway signs were the gestures and the self-admonishment, which have rarely been seen in the 2½ years since Konta began her rise. “She looked extremely flustered,” said Eurosport pundit Annabel Croft.
Konta started this clay-court swing by telling one reporter that she liked the surface. She finished it, yesterday, claiming that, “I did improve with every single point, game, and set, and match that I played throughout the season”.
Konta did win the first set yesterday, and took the second to a tiebreak. At that point, though, Hsieh found a hot streak of inspiration, reeling off a series of disguised drop shots, deft lobs and flat backhand winners.
She uses two-handed groundstrokes on both sides and also has a cunning sidearm-serve variation that she seems to feel slightly guilty about, admitting after the match that, “I don’t know if that’s really nice or not”.
In 16 years on the tour, Hsieh had never beaten anyone ranked higher than No 20. “I have a little problem when I play these girls,” she said. “I can get a little bit nervous.”
On this occasion, though, she held her nerve in admirable style, seeing off four break points in the final game to seal a 1-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory with an unreturned serve.