Wimbledon rolls out the welcome mat (and towels) for our top female player
Johanna Konta has been granted the rare privilege of access to the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s lady members’ locker room
THERE are tea and biscuits, fresh fluffy towels and scented soaps, and now – for the first time in more than 30 years – there’s a British player there to enjoy them all.
Johanna Konta, the British women’s number one, has joined the elite of the game in being awarded her own space in the hallowed lady members’ locker room at Wimbledon.
The honour came about by accident, when Victoria Azarenka dropped out of the championships with injury, bumping Konta, number 17 seed, up into the top 16 and worthy of a place in the upstairs locker room.
But fortuitous or not, Konta is enjoying the experience and within moments of arriving at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in SW19 yesterday she had chosen her own personal locker.
“It’s nice and quiet. That’s the biggest difference,” she said. “Downstairs is a lot busier and there’s a lot more players around.”
Past players have described the lady members’ locker room as more akin to a luxury health spa than a sports club changing room.
Once they step through the Palladian columns of the locker room’s entrance, attendants wait with freshly laundered towels and new bars of soap.
There are individual bathrooms with wooden fittings, sofas for prematch relaxation, scattered rugs and plump cushions.
“It’s not like your average locker room,” Jennifer Capriati once said. “You know, there’s like nice couches. I mean, the ladies that work in there ... you have teas, little biscuits and stuff like that. It’s a nice place to be.”
The upstairs locker room also comes with its own folklore.
Monica Seles was almost prevented from getting onto court in time for a match by Martina Navratilova’s chihuahua. Every time Seles reached for a racket the dog would yelp furiously until Navratilova eventually returned to calm it down.
Some of the more superstitious players like to use the same bath or shower and there have been arguments when opponents have been perceived as spending too much time in them.
Sue Barker, the 1977 semi-finalist, said: “I used to love lounging in the bath and I was always convinced that Virginia Wade used to deliberately try to get in there before me to nick it.
But for the moment Konta is simply happy to be able to set foot onto the lady members’ locker room’s polished parquet floors.
“It’s an honour,” said the 25-yearold. “I just found out just a few weeks ago that if you’re a top 16 seed you move upstairs. I thought it was just top eight, so I didn’t even know.”
Not that she’s getting too carried away.
“The showers are the same size and the towels look the same,” she said. “Once that initial excitement goes you start thinking about things that are more important.”
Focusing on her tennis is something the young British player – the first British woman to be seeded at Wimbledon since Jo Durie in 1984 – is Johanna Konta reached the semi-finals at Eastbourne last week, above, and said that attending a Glamour awards event, did not mean she was likely to lose focus determined to do, regardless of the distractions on offer.
Indeed she bridles at the suggestion, made most recently by Andy Murray’s mother Judy, that young British female players need to concentrate more on their game and avoid being enticed by the round of glamorous parties, openings and promotional events.
Earlier this month Konta, who reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January, posted online a series of photos of her partying at the magazine awards.
Judy Murray said Konta was capable of climbing to the top 10 in the world rankings, but had to focus. She added: “The thing for British players is it is
“We have the courts ready four days before the championships kick off, but then you sit on your hands worrying that things will go wrong,” he said. “By the time I wake up in the morning I’ve gone through 15 scenarios in my head