"I think it's a beginning," Angelique Kerber said in September 2011 after her very unexpected run to the US Open semi-finals was over.
On Saturday, no longer an outsider, she gave herself a happier ending in the world’s biggest tennis stadium. Already guaranteed to become No 1 for the first time next week, Kerber will rise to the top spot as a first-time US Open champion, too.
The German left-hander secured the title by proving steadier under duress than the more powerful and less experienced No 10 seed, Karolina Pliskova: winning an entertaining and draining final 6-3 4-6 6-4.
Up a break early in the third set, Pliskova, a powerful 24-year-old from the Czech Republic, looked like she might ride the wave to the final. But Kerber broke her back in the sixth game. At 4-4, it still looked like anyone’s trophy, but Kerber is not the same player who once routinely found a way to crack under deep third-set pressure.
This has been a cathartic, remarkable season for the 28-year-old and she made it more special still by sweeping the final eight points of the match, holding serve at love and then breaking Pliskova’s serve at love: falling to the court after the Czech’s last inside-out forehand sailed wide.
When the year began, Kerber had yet to reach the final of a Grand Slam tournament. Now she has won two Major titles, defeating Serena Williams to win the Australian Open in January and then winning in New York by knocking out Pliskova, who defeated both Serena and Venus Williams on her way to the final.
Kerber also reached this year’s Wimbledon final, where she lost to Serena Williams, and won a silver medal in singles at the Summer Olympics.
“When I won my first Grand Slam in Australia, and we came back I had much more confidence,” she said.
“I had much more belief in my game, and then I was just trying to get used to this pressure, all the stuff that happened after Australia. I don’t know if I was prepared for this, but I think I played an amazing year.”
(New York Times service)
