Konta is last Briton standing again but wows Navratilova

Easy victory over Zhang sets up Pliskova clash Williams also powers through to fourth round

A dominant 6-2, 6-3 win over Zhang Shuai completed the set for Johanna Konta. The earlier loss suffered by Dan Evans meant that, in each of the four slams played in 2019, Konta has been the LBS – or Last Briton Standing.

What a transformation from Konta’s glum 2018: a season when her coaching partnership with Michael Joyce failed to gel and she won only two matches at the majors. This year, with the understated Dimitri Zavialoff beside her, her tally is up to 13 – the highest for anyone who has not reached a final.

Clearly, she wants to reach the trophy match, but her consistency is admirable. “I feel like I’ve given myself every opportunity to get better and grow,” she said. “I didn’t let my first-round losses in Toronto and Cincinnati upset me and I stayed on the same path.”

Zhang is hardly a novice, having won slam doubles titles and reached the quarters of Wimbledon last month. But she was completely over-run by Konta’s venomous shot-making, which was on point from the very first rally. Martina Navratilova, commentating on Amazon Prime, called it an “A-plus performance”. “She looked great,” Navratilova added.

“Everything was working. I think she had a very specific game plan. She knew what she wanted to do so she had that clarity and she played with clarity. She made a few more unforced errors in that second set but overall the ratio was fantastic. She really went for the right shots at the right time and mixed things up.”

In her first incarnation as a top20 player, which came about two years ago, Konta was a power hitter with little guile. Since then, she has come to understand point construction far more deeply. When she served, though, there was little need for subtlety. Most of the time, she was able to put the ball away with a one-two punch, so Zhang won a meagre six points on return.

“When you have more variety yourself, then you can handle the variety of opponents as well because then you have different options on different shots,” said Navratilova. “It seems like she’s playing more on instinct now, she knows what she wants to do and doesn’t have to think about it. Because of that I think she’s cut out the unforced errors.”

Oddly, Konta has now won all eight of her third-round matches at slams. But her next outing is trickier, third seed Karolina Pliskova tomorrow. The US Open is the only major where she has yet to reach the quarter-finals, so the prize is significant – but so is the challenge.

In seven past meetings, Konta has landed only a single win over Pliskova, a big serving Czech who thumped her in May’s Madrid final.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams eased through 6-3, 6-2 against Pliskova’s compatriot Karolina Muchova, who also reached the Wimbledon quarters. That earned Williams a fourth-round meeting with 22nd seed Petra Martic.

They say that women’s tennis is unpredictable, but at the time of writing, every player still left in the bottom half of the draw was a seed, while the men’s event has been full of surprises.