‘I feel tickled pink to think Wimbledon is my club now’
Johanna Konta has never been better prepared for a campaign at the ‘magical’ home of tennis, writes Simon Briggs
As Andy Murray’s season stumbles from drama to crisis, do British sports fans know how lucky they are to have another top-10 player in the mix? Probably not. Johanna Konta may be breaking Jo Durie’s records almost weekly, but she has yet to prosper at Wimbledon – the one tennis event that reaches into the nation’s living rooms. After five outings in the main draw, she has claimed just a single victory.
Yet Konta returns to Wimbledon this year with a fresh perspective. In November, she received a letter announcing her enrolment into the All England Club – that inner sanctum of British tennis – as a temporary member.
For this most international of players – a woman with three passports who once described herself as “the female equivalent of Jason Bourne” – the sense of belonging was particularly cherishable. “I actually have gone there three times now,” Konta told The Daily Telegraph this week. “Twice to practise and once just for afternoon tea. It was a magical place. I feel tickled pink, just to think that this is my club now.”
That tea was taken on May 13, when Konta joined the likes of Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong and former British No2 Jamie Baker for the annual opening of the grass courts. Frustratingly, bad weather kept the players inside, but she did find time for a personal tour conducted by All England Lawn Tennis Club chairman Philip Brook. “I got to see the Royal Box and the view on to Centre Court,” she said. “I got to see how the roof on No1 Court was coming along, and it’s absolutely spectacular.”
With any luck, Konta’s forthcoming Wimbledon campaign will benefit from her new-found familiarity with the place. Because British tennis needs her more than ever. After her run to Sunday’s final in Birmingham, she is the nation’s only in-form player.
On the surface, there would seem to be few similarities between the two main home hopes. Where Murray is lugubrious, Konta radiates a contrastingly bouncy and Tiggerish energy. Yet both have inquiring minds and could be described as “performing introverts” – a phrase coined by former British No1 Sam Smith
– who prefer the company of their own intimate circle.
In a BBC radio feature on Tuesday night, Konta herself admitted: “I didn’t have very many friends when I was younger, I think because I was competitive and that sometimes sets you aside from the norm.” During junior training sessions in Sydney, she even left her bag in a different spot to the other girls.
As the BBC documentary emphasised, her work ethic never dropped off, even during those demoralising years in her early twenties when her ranking flatlined at around 200 in the world. Hers is a story of perseverance, and also one of
‘You have to practise mindfulness a lot to be calm, and that doesn’t just apply to my tennis’
collaboration. In 2014, Konta found her way to Gijón, on the coast of the Asturias, where she started working with understated Spanish coach Esteban Carril. Then, through Carril, she met Juan Coto, the ‘mind guru’ who helped temper her on-court anxiety.
In 2015, the results began to arrive at last, as Konta – who turned 26 last month – clambered up from No147 in the world to enter the top 20 a year later. But then, last November, her most transformational relationship was severed in the most brutal way.
To the shock and devastation of everyone who knew him, Coto took his own life, aged 47. Declaring herself “emotionally tired”, Konta halted her mindfulness studies while she digested this tragic loss. But she also acknowledged that Coto would have wanted her to continue. So, in the spring, she struck up a new regime.
“I started working with Elena [Sosa, a Spanish life coach] a couple of months ago,” Konta said. “She knew Juan, she worked a little bit with him as well. You have to practise a lot to be calm, and that doesn’t just apply to my tennis. It applies to my life as well. I try to spend about 10 minutes on it a day.”
Ever fastidious, Konta organises her career via two Whatsapp groups on her phone. One is the “big picture” group, including everyone from Sosa to her Londonbased physio Milena Mirkovic. The other consists of the people with her at each event.
As she explained on Monday, “This week it would be Wim [Fissette, her latest coach], Andrew [Fitzpatrick, her hitting partner], Vicky [Brook, her agent], Gill [Myburgh, her fitness trainer] …” She stopped for a second, as if struggling for words. “And … my boyfriend.” Ah, yes – the boyfriend.
A fiercely private person, Konta prefers not to mention her partners by name, but there has been a change on this front. She is no longer with Kether Clouder, the Hawk-eye executive who had accompanied her for the previous couple of years. Since the spring, she has instead been dating 24-year-old Jackson Wade, manager of video and photography at the Lawn Tennis Association.
“I feel really weird talking about it,” she grimaced. “He’s been around since Miami and no one cares, so I don’t know why ...” She tailed off.
Those 10 days in Miami represented the high point of Konta’s career to date. Having beaten Simona Halep and Venus Williams in successive rounds, she blitzed Caroline Wozniacki in the final to claim the trophy and the £937,000 first prize. The achievement is all the greater when you consider how turbulent the past six months have been.
Konta bought her own first property in London at the end of 2016, a flat overlooking the river in Putney, and thus moved out of the Eastbourne home she has shared with her parents for over a decade.
She also changed coaches, mourned the death of one of her closest advisers, began a new relationship, joined the All England Club, and lifted the biggest title to be claimed by a British woman since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.
For all the positives, it cannot be easy to stay balanced through such tumultuous times. Particularly when you are “highly strung” – a phrase that Konta cheerfully uses to describe herself. But this is where the meditation skills espoused by Coto and Sosa come in. Known for her obsession with “staying in the process”, Konta approaches every tournament in a uniformly businesslike way.
“I think it [mindfulness] is a great tool for me,” she said. “A great habit to continue to nurture. Just having better perspective, and having trust in my own abilities to handle whatever situation.”
Yes, Wimbledon might stand unchallenged as the most pressurised fortnight of the year. But with her mental game freshly honed, and the All England Club on her side, Konta has never been better prepared.