Johanna Konta keeps chipping away at tennis history and a three-set victory over the tough Russian Ekaterina Makarova here on Monday evening put her alongside Jo Durie, the last British player to make the women's quarter-finals at the Australian Open. That was 33 years ago, nine years long than the Eastbourne player has been alive.
Konta served for the match twice but steadied her normally reliable serving arm at the second attempt to win 4-6, 6-4, 8-6.
Not many players cite the serve as their favourite shot, especially on the women’s Tour, but for Konta the play-starter is her weapon of choice and she needed every bullet to beat the 24th seed, for the second time, in four minutes over three hours. It was the second longest match of the women’s draw so far, 12 minutes behind Caroline Wozniacki’s painful exit in the first round at the hands of Yulia Putintseva.
“Goodness gracious,” the Sydney-born exile said to her Melbourne audience courtside in the Margaret Court Arena immediately afterwards, “there are only a few of you in here but you made so much noise.”
A lot of British support, no doubt, were camped in the adjacent Rod Laver Arena, watching Andy Murray playing Bernard Tomic for a place in the men's quarter-final.
Konta was glowing, exhausted and hugely satisfied – as well as proudly British, despite numerous attempts by the Australian media to press her into a long-lost allegiance to the country of her birth.
“It’s really about just keep walking, just keep breathing,” she said of how she came through several ups and downs in a match she might have won in two sets. “The fewer thoughts the better. I’m going to eat and sleep, eat and sleep and then repeat [ahead of her match on Wednesday night].”
Konta – who will move up to 32 in the world at the very least after this tournament – was 3-1 up and cruising in the first set, with a couple of points for 4-1. All the confidence she had built up in the first three matches looked to be paying a more significant dividend, but she could not get that second break, then fortunes shifted back and forth like cargo on a boat in a storm for quarter of an hour.
Makarova broke back in the sixth game, double-faulted twice at 4-4, Konta missed a forehand to blow a break point and Makarova broke for the set.
But, as is so often the case in the women’s game, the deck chairs pretty quickly started sliding the other way and Konta gathered her newly forged powers of concentration to break at the start of the second. The pattern of the promising start had been resumed, and again the British No 1 went 3-1 up. This time, her nerve held – as did her serve.
At 5-4 and 40-15 up she served a fault but followed with a strong, deep second effort to level at a set apiece. Konta was serving at only 47% of efficiency for the match, 52 for the levelling set, but winning just over half the points on her second serve, compared with a mere 29% for her left-handed opponent.
Konta was 2-2 against left-handers before tonight, including that breakthrough win against the Russian at Eastbourne last year, so the angles do not unduly worry her.
Makarova held serve through deuce points at the start of the third and then asked for treatment to a blister on her right foot – and Konta was not pleased, contending that it might have been a pre-existing injury.
Treatment during the mandated medical timeout must have been good, though; Makarova moved well and forced Konta to hold through deuce.
The Konta second serve got her out of trouble again in the fourth game to save a break then again hold. Indeed there was not much between her first and second serves.
She took new balls at 2-3 and the extra liveliness helped her level, and her spirits rose when she broke in the ninth game, forcing a limp forehand out of her opponent as the concluding set approached the hour mark.
Serving for a place in the quarter-finals, she charged the net at 15-30 and Makarova put a perfect passing shot down the line to grab two break points – then absolutely butchered an identical opportunity. The Russian clinched the break, though, with a controlled forehand that left Konta helpless on the baseline.
Makarova drove her forehand wide to surrender her serve in the 13th game, as the match approached minor-marathon proportions, and Konta served for the match a second time.
Would her pet shot let her down this time?
This was her best set for serving reliability, and Makarova felt its power and precision under the most extreme pressure. A final howitzer wide to the Russian’s forehand was too hot, the reply billowed the net and the job was done.
It was Makarova’s 60th unforced error; Konta’s count was 20 fewer. It was a good measure of their approach, the British woman striving for consistency, her opponent driven to too many desperate corners.
(Guardian service)
