If Johanna Konta’s Wimbledon muffin-baking updates provided the famously intense Briton with a welcome diversion from the pressures associated with the deepest run at the Championships by a local woman since 1978, the surprise was that the ensuing months would produce more success in the kitchen than on the court.
Amid the social media posts showing cakes, pies and strudels, as well as a tweet flagging entry into the annual Great British Bake Off, Konta’s final three months of the year produced just two match wins from six tournaments before a foot injury forced its early end.
Coach Wim Fissette departed after just 10 months in the job, the Belgian’s goose apparently cooked by the form slump that followed Konta’s peak career ranking of No.4 in July. Still, it was something of a surprise, for the pair had seemed an ideal fit: the understated, experienced Fissette, and the highly-strung 26-year-old enjoying the most successful year of a late-blooming career.
Konta explains that her maturity lag was both physical and mental, considering she only stopped growing at 23, and describes herself as “still a very young girl” when in her early 20s. More journey-woman than prodigy, clearly, but also a determined box-ticker and slightly jargon-heavy process-follower who made impressive progress in 2017 towards bolstering a sometimes brittle match temperament.
As Fissette said at Wimbledon, where Konta’s victims included his former charge Simona Halep in an outstanding quarterfinal epic: “I think she’s winning a lot of matches with mental strength. That’s a result of her hard work over the past years, to be able to stay strong in these situations."
Typical Konta was her reaction to a shock first-round loss at the US Open to world No.78 Aleksandra Krunic which, in hindsight, was where the unravelling began. She returned home to Putney, took some time away from the court. “I did a lot of work with yoga and breathing and just mental and physical work as well. It was a tough loss for me in New York so I wanted to make sure it was something that I really learned from and really did not catastrophise because I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, as always.’’
Intelligent and thoughtful, Konta has joined compatriot Andy Murray in sharing her own perspective on gender equality issues, pointing out that Wimbledon is a sporting event, not women’s or men’s. “When people commented on my match (against Halep) being the most watched match of the championships, they put it very much in a female context and I thought ‘well, why does it need to be in a female context? It’s a tennis match. Part of an event.
“I think it’s appreciating the match for what it brings, and what it is. And, by the way, I think all the women’s matches really kicked arse, they were outstanding.’’
With nine different winners of the nine biggest titles in 2017, including Konta at the Miami Open, and five players sharing the top ranking at various stages, the current world No.9 has also been keen to qualify the talk about the so-called ‘openness’ of the WTA tour while Serena Williams has been on parental leave.
“It’s not open in the sense of it’s willy-nilly, it’s open in the sense of there are so many amazing players. We have the depth,’’ she says. “First they complain that the Williams sisters were winning everything, and now they complain that there is no one specific person. And I’m like, well, ‘what is it you are looking for?’ It’s so sad that they can’t appreciate how our Tour is so high quality now.”
Having logged two finishes in the top 10 with her aggressive, big-serving game, Konta has been rightly lauded in Britain, where she admits she no longer needs to be wearing sports clothes to be recognised in the street. It took five-time champion Venus Williams to end her memorable fortnight at SW19, although her original Grand Slam breakthrough came in Australia, the country of her birth.
The 2016 semifinalist reached the quarters at Melbourne Park this year, and will return after an extended pre-season that included a November charity appearance with the Duchess of Cambridge, and a place on the shortlist for the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
As for the big one, the Great British Bake Off? Result unknown.
