Venus Williams defeats Konta to reach her 9th Wimbledon final
The first serve that Venus Williams hit on Thursday flew straight at her opponent, Johanna Konta, who lunged just in time to avoid getting drilled by it. The ball landed well beyond the service line, but its message had been successfully communicated: If you can’t take the heat, the five-time Wimbledon champion seemed to be saying, you’re not going to last long on my court. And yes, while she hasn’t won here since 2008, Venus still looks like she believes that, with her sister Serena absent, Centre Court belongs to her. That’s how she’s played ever since she was invited back onto it on Monday.
Konta, despite the strenuous efforts of the audience, who hadn’t seen one of their own women in a semifinal here in 39 years, didn’t last long in Venus’ domain. In one of her cleanest performances in years, Williams terminated the Brit’s storybook run with maximum efficiency, 6-4, 6-2, in 73 mostly tense minutes. In doing so, she became, at 37, the oldest Wimbledon finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994.
It wasn’t Venus’ power alone that won her this match. She hit just two aces, she and Konta both averaged 104 m.p.h. on their first serves and Konta actually smacked more winners, 20 to 19. It was Venus’ accuracy, and her ability to rise to any challenge, that made the difference. Often erratic in the past, on Thursday her shots were measured with precision and struck with a blend of aggression and margin. She never played it safe, but she made just nine errors in 18 games.
Venus played suffocating tennis, and forced Konta to match her intensity. But while Venus didn’t need to hit risky shots to do damage, Konta had to redline her game to keep up. Venus sent the same message with her early returns that she had with her serve; any time she got a look at a second ball to her backhand, she went for broke, and she usually made it. Konta was never not under pressure.
Eventually, Venus broke down Konta’s forehand. By the second set, the shot—which is her most effective weapon—wasn’t there for her anymore. When it failed, she had no plan B. Instead of trying to throw Williams off by varying her spins and speeds, Konta kept powering the ball into the American’s strike zone, and watching it come back faster.
The turn came with Venus serving at 4-4 in the first. Konta had played brave, clutch tennis to stay on serve, and she was rewarded with Venus’ first stumble: a double fault for 15-30, and a shanked swing volley for 15-40. The crowd buzzed in anticipation of a Konta service break; little did they know that the match was about to swing in Williams’ direction for good. Venus saved one break point with a backhand winner, and then came up with the shot of the match, a 106-m.p.h. second serve that completely handcuffed Konta.
Asked where the “instinct” came from to go for that serve at that stage, Venus smiled, shrugged and said, “I try to produce whatever I need at that time. There’s, like, no plan, or anything like that. I don’t plan. I’m just trying to compete.”
Venus was the superior competitor from that point on. She won eight of the last nine points for the set, broke early in the second and powered to a 4-1 lead in what felt like a matter of minutes. In fighting off Konta’s challenge, Venus raised her game and never let it drop.
“I think she did what she does well,” Konta said of Williams. “She dictated the match from the very first ball till the very last one … It was very difficult for me to get a good foothold in the match. The few opportunities that I did get, she did incredibly well to take them away from me.”
Venus said she was trying to represent the Williams family name as best she could.
“I miss her so much,” Venus said of Serena. “I try to take the same courage on the court that she would have. I tried to do the things she would do. I don’t know that I play exactly the same way she does, but I really tried to be inspired by it.”
After her quarterfinal win over Jelena Ostapenko, I wrote that this year’s Venus looked like the Venus of old once she reached the second week. Ten years ago, when she stepped onto Centre Court in the later rounds, her game became much stronger and cleaner, and the errors vanished. That has happened again in 2017, but something else has happened, too. In the absence of her sister, Venus herself has looked more commanding on court, the way she did when she, and not Serena, was No. 1 in the world and appeared destined to be the dominant champion of the future.
Between them, the Williams sisters have won 12 of the last 16 Wimbledons. With Serena away, every woman in the draw knew she had a better—maybe a once-in-a-lifetime—chance of winning this title. But only Venus, who likes to say of her sister that “her win is my win,” had a chance to defend that title. The crowd on Thursday belonged to Jo Konta, but Centre Court, until proven otherwise, still belongs to the Williams family.
