CHINA GIRL JO HITS THE TOP TEN
Final date for rising star Konta
JO KONTA rounded off Women’s Sports Week by breaking into the top 10 of what is arguably the most competitive female athletic pursuit.
The British No 1 looked every inch a player of that status as she edged Madison Keys 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 to make the final of the China Open, where she was later joined by Andy Murray in the men’s event.
Not only has Konta become the first British woman to make the world’s top 10 since Jo Durie in 1984, it is the first time that GB has had two singles top 10 players at once since the full inception of global rankings for both sexes, in 1975.
Today she can take herself even further if she defeats Agnieszka Radwanska to win what is one of the biggest titles in the women’s game below the Grand Slams.
Victory would put her in a commanding position to qualify for the season-ending WTA Championships in Singapore for the season’s top eight players.
Defeat would see her still only a tiny 10 points ahead of her nearest rival Dominika Cibulkova, so it would remain very tight heading into the last two weeks of regular WTA events.
There is no shortage of financial incentive, with Singapore offering £5.6million in prize money to its participants.
‘It’s pretty special. I’m just enjoying being here, I’m just trying to prolong it as long as possible and I feel very blessed to be coming back tomorrow to play in the final,’ said 25-year-old Konta after her see-saw victory.
Durie did not waste any time offering her congratulations via Twitter: ‘A fantastic year and thoroughly deserves the top 10 ranking. More to come I’m sure,’ she said.
Virginia Wade and Sue Barker are the two other Brits to have made the women’s top 10, and 18 months ago it would have unthinkable to bracket Konta amid that august company.
She has long usurped Heather Watson and Laura Robson, who originally suggested greater promise.
Going into the summer of 2015 Konta, who arrived from Australia to make a new life in Britain aged 14, was only ranked just inside the top 150, and even after some promising results on the grass was still outside 125.
The improvement since has been remarkable, and she has sustained it long enough to demonstrate it is no fluke.
Her game does not have anything especially startling about it but is based on her excep- tionally solid defence, athleticism and an elimination of weaknesses. She is a much calmer competitor than she was, while her outstanding work ethic has never been in question. Konta has been increasingly able to soak up the power that the best players throw at her, and ballstrikers do not come more potent than world No 9 Keys. The British No 1 showed all her attributes yesterday in defusing the talented American, playing a superbly focused first-set tie-break to take it 7-1. Keys looked like she was gaining the ascendancy when she took six out of eight games to win the second set and go an early break up in the third, but Konta calmly kept retrieving to quickly level. She then got ahead for 5-4 on serve before breaking decisively to win. It takes something to put Murray in the shade this year, but she has managed to do that in this unusual week where the women’s event has a stronger field and better prize money than the concurrent men’s tournament. Murray was yesterday up against one of his oldest and most persistent rivals, the now veteran Spaniard David Ferrer. Their matches have become gradually less even and the 29-year-old Scot took it 6-2, 6-3, although he had his serve broken in both sets. He will face Grigor Dimitrov in this morning’s final.