Murray and Konta set for Manic Monday
Essential guide to today’s top clashes
Where would you sit, given the choice, on Wimbledon’s Manic Monday? Andy Murray retains his customary berth on Centre Court, but Johanna Konta – who occupies the first slot on Court No1 – could be the better bet. Just ask the bookmakers, who have Murray at a remote 11-2 for the title, while Konta is now attracting serious money as the 9-2 favourite.
How do we explain this shift in relative appeal? The women’s draw is so wide open that only one former champion has reached the halfway mark (Venus Williams, whose last Wimbledon triumph came in 2008). Yet the more significant factor must remain the fitness concerns surrounding Murray, who was limping heavily again during yesterday’s practice.
Konta has looked contrastingly chipper and perky all week, showing no ill-effects from her fall in the Eastbourne quarter-final 10 days ago. She has also surprised everyone with her equanimity, chatting away happily about her riverside flat in Putney and her admiration for Aidan Turner of Poldark. According to Wim Fissette, her coach, her newfound poise stems from a deep sense of self-belief.
“How many players come to Wimbledon with the idea ‘I might win this one?’” asked Fissette. “I don’t think there will be 10 players. There are few with the champion mentality who believe in themselves, that they are the ones. Is Johanna one? She will not express it but, for sure, she is confident in her game and she is confident about herself. So, yeah, I think so.”
Konta’s tournament could have ended in the second round. She needed three hours and 10 minutes to subdue Croatia’s Donna Vekic, who extended Konta to 10-8 in the deciding set. Having survived that test, Konta then trounced Greek No1 Maria Sakkari, and today faces Caroline Garcia, the gifted Frenchwoman whom Andy Murray once picked as a future world No1.
That was six years ago, and Garcia – now 23 – has yet to break the top 20. But this is not to criticise Murray’s judgment. Rather, it demonstrates that technical ability will only take you so far. “She has been getting better year on year for four years,” said Fissette of Garcia. “But she is not making the big steps. She has a great game but she does not always use her shots at the right moment.”
Having said that, Garcia won her last meeting against Konta: a hardfought three-setter in Indian Wells in March. Fissette remembers it as the only time since he joined the camp, at the end of last season, that he saw Konta’s mental equilibrium become disturbed.
“That was a strange match where Johanna was not able to control her emotions very well,” said Fissette. “In the tie-break in the third set, she was not really ready to compete at her best because I saw her shaking her head after the first point.
“We spoke after the match and I said ‘Johanna, if there’s something I expect from you, it’s to be mentally right there, because it is one of your strengths’. We came to the conclusion that she is also human. Days will come when it is just hard to control your emotions.”
To return to the comparison between the two British No1s, Murray’s advantage is that he has been here nine times before. Playing on the second Monday of Wimbledon is as familiar to him as appearing on the BBC’S Sports Personality of the Year show. As for Konta, a late developer, she remains a relative newbie at this level. At 26, she is in only her second full year on the tour. After the second round, Murray suggested that Konta could do more to harness the fans’ energy, and Fissette takes a similar view.
“For her, it’s still difficult, still new,” he said. “She has to learn how to appreciate it [the support] more and use it more as a positive energy to her.”
What about the argument that Konta should let out her negative emotions more? “In Miami,” replied Fissette, “I said to her, ‘You always stay quite neutral, even when things are not going well. Maybe it’s better to break a racket once in a while and get the frustrations out and then you can continue?’ And she said, ‘I have experience in the past that it’s something that is not helping me’. But using more positive body language is for sure something that is helping her.”
The crowd on Court No1 will try their hardest to inspire. Given Britain has not had a female Wimbledon quarter-finalist since Jo Durie in 1984, we can expect quite a party at 1pm. Ticket-holders on Centre – where Williams opens the schedule against Ana Konjuh – might even experience a rare twinge of envy.