She’s turned a corner mentally, now Andy could help her to title

THERE was a moment just before Wimbledon when we observed Johanna Konta’s prickly exchange with a journalist and saw the signs of someone struggling with all the psychological pressure that this great tournament brings.

Konta had just lost to Coco Vandeweghe at Birmingham and was asked if it was a ‘blow’ for her Wimbledon preparations.

‘Is it a big blow for you?’ she replied. ‘Cheers for the positivity.’

Ouch! She was being asked some fairly simple questions about whether defeat had hampered her and was not making a very good job of dealing with it.

I can’t pretend that the unique pressure British players face at Wimbledon was something I dealt well with.

To be honest, I didn’t like playing here in the singles. I couldn’t take it when I heard the gasps from the crowd when I missed the ball — we British players called it the ‘Wimbledon Groan’.

Overall I played poorly here and had far more success at the US Open and Australia. And I thought Johanna was suffering in that way — until her epic second round win over Donna Vekic which, for me, was the moment she seemed to have arrived as a Wimbledon player.

Konta would have received a lot of criticism if she had lost that match while ranked in the world top 20 but she found the inner resource to win it. Psychologically that was hugely important. She needed that match and it might just make her Wimbledon.

We all talk about big forehands, backhands and serves and we’ve all got to have those. But when it comes down to the crunch, it’s the psychological component which separates the good from the great.

I’m far more confident than a week ago that Konta has what it takes to win.

But the pressure will be immense if she ventures deep into the second week because there will be a huge amount of talk about this being 40th anniversary of Virginia Wade beating Betty Stove here. Virginia would sometimes get a bit tight but she held her nerve and won that Wimbledon final in 1977.

The women’s event is wide open, though. The two players I thought might come to the fore and win it in Serena Williams’ absence — Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova — are both out already. Simona Halep seems to have bounced back after losing in the French final and can win this. Jelena Ostapenko thinks she can, too. I doubt Victoria Azarenka can, even though she’s won other Grand Slams. But the way Venus Williams (below) has handled herself this week suggests to me that she is very much a contender. The car crash she was involved in makes things difficult but, as Martina Navratilova once said, the game seems to be a way of escaping troubles for a few hours. Williams is the one I’m looking at now. Konta is certainly a contender, too. And though she seems to have turned a corner where the pressure is concerned, I think she could do far worse than speak to Andy Murray and Tim Henman about how they embraced being in this situation, playing in front of fans who desperately want the Briton to win. The players have coaches to help with that sort of thing, and there’s psychological help around, too. But her coaches haven’t been there. They don’t know how it feels to be a player trying to deal with expectation in your home Grand Slam. It could be Konta’s Wimbledon if the pressure really doesn’t get to her. We’re halfway through but I think she should still make the phone call to Murray or Henman and have that chat.