Johanna Konta outlasted at Miami Open by evergreen Venus Williams
British interest in the Miami Open is over before the quarter-finals – the first time that has happened since 2011 – after a physically restricted Johanna Konta was outlasted on Monday by the evergreen Venus Williams.
We might have expected Williams to be the one struggling on Monday. Three months before her 38th birthday, she was returning to the court after a 2hr 56min epic against Kiki Bertens the previous day.
For a woman with an auto-immune condition that induces chronic fatigue, it was a remarkable effort to last another 2hr 20min, let alone to close out a 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory.
Admittedly Williams was assisted by the physical handicaps that afflicted Konta in the later stages. The British No. 1 took a ten-minute medical time-out after the second set, during which she had her lower back manipulated.
When play resumed, she kept slugging away, but her earlier rhythm had evaporated and her error count escalated alarmingly.
Konta had finished the first set strongly, firing a pair of backhand winners to close it out, but then dropped her serve early in the second set and found herself pushed back by a ferocious Williams bombardment. She hit only one winner in the entire set, to her opponents’ tally of nine.
And then came the injury, which required not only the original medical time-out but also further bouts of treatment at the next couple of changeovers. The result means that Konta has now lost her last three meetings with Williams, including last year’s Wimbledon semi-final.
Konta is now due to switch to the green clay of Charleston, in an event starting next week. Clay is her weakest surface, by a significant margin, but at least she doubts that her back trouble will linger.
“I think mainly it was more of a spasm more than anything,” she said, “and I just wanted to make sure that it didn't become more sinister, which spasms can.
"I'd be hesitant to call it an injury. I think it was more just a case of me playing with a little too much stress and therefore my body not dealing with and adapting well enough to the conditions.”
15 quotes that show Johanna Konta is the most down-to-earth woman in tennis
Having arrived in Miami as the defending champion, with 1000 rankings points to defend, Konta will thus slip back significantly when the next chart is published on Monday.
She will probably be somewhere in the high 20s, depending on other results. And for the last time she stood outside the top 20, you have to go back to the summer of 2016.
