US Open 2019: Johanna Konta stuns World No 3 Karolina Pliskova in battle of baseliners, sets up last-eight clash against Elina Svitolina

This week, it has emerged that Tom Hiddlestone is Johanna Konta’s No 1 celebrity fan at the US Open. And on Sunday, with the Avengers star cheering her from the stands, the British player showed she had stomach for the endgame. In a match of more twists and turns than Marvel’s latest superhero installment, Konta toppled World No 3 Karolina Pliskova 6-7 (1), 6-3, 7-5 in the fourth round of the US Open, the reel time running two hours and 19 minutes. Thus, the 28-year-old became the first British woman, since Jo Durie in 1983, to make it to the quarter-finals of the year’s last major. “I’ve reached the fourth round for the first time and to go one step further is a massive achievement for me,” said the Australia-born player, who has now finished quarter-finals or better at all the four Grand Slams. “I don’t think there’s a magic formula to stay until the end of Slams. Just as easily I could have lost in the first round — I was playing a great player (Daria Kasatkina).” [caption id=“attachment_7268531” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Konta toppled world No 3 Karolina Pliskova 6-7 (1), 6-3, 7-5 in the fourth round of the US Open. AFP[/caption] The 1-6 win-loss record against Pliskova didn’t seem to daunt Konta, as the World No 16 won the Czech’s first service game to jump to an early lead. She pushed the 6'1 Pliskova, who has hit more aces than any other woman at the tournament so far, to a break point in each of her first four service games. The Brit’s pure shot-making was taking the racquet out of Pliskova’s hand. But the Czech survived the assault, saved nine consecutive break points and made Konta serve for the set. The nerves that had seemed to shackle her while serving out the first set against Barbora Strycova at her home Grand Slam, Wimbledon, were back. Konta lost nine points in a row and went down in a flurry of errors in the tie-break (7-1). Even as Pliskova started to clean up her act towards the end of the opening set, Konta was guilty of pulling the trigger too soon. The second set saw a role reversal. It was Pliskova who took an early 3-1 lead and Konta who staged a comeback. “I knew there would be massive portions out there against Karolina when I didn’t know what I was doing,” the Brit said later. “The key was just to keep going.” Like it had been at the beginning of the first set, Konta started by attacking Pliskova second serve. It was clearly the Czech’s soft spot: through the match, she won 77 percent of the points on her first serve but only 23 percent on the second. In the second set though, she didn’t win a single point on her second serve while Konta won 14 of the 21 receiving points. The Brit, who played with increased pace off both wings to keep the ball out of Pliskova’s long reach, won five games in a row, breaking the lethal Pliskova serve thrice in the set. She found her forehand, rifling two winners to save two break points in the ninth game, to force a decider. While momentum had swung wildly, and unpredictably, in the first two sets, the women buckled down for a tough third set. Pliskova improved her first serve percentage to 76 percent and Konta to 75 percent. Aggressive baseliners both, they refrained from taking unnecessary risks, waiting for the other to blink first. The set went on serve till 5-5, with neither of them even facing a break point (Konta had won 13 break point opportunities till then, while Pliskova had nine). It was Pliskova, the 2016 US Open finalist, who dropped the ball. Twice, Konta, battling hard, managed to put a racquet to Pliskova’s pacy serves. The Czech, with almost the whole court open to her, drove a volley into the net and then sent a forehand long. She handed the Brit another cheap point by serving in a double fault. Out of nowhere, Konta found herself on the brink of a rare triumph. The Brit called on to her favoured forehand again to save a break point, and breathed a sigh of relief as a Pliskova forehand flew wide two points later. “I will enjoy this but I have to keep looking forward and try to go one, two or three steps further,” said Konta. Even though her opponent on the day is one of the best servers on the tour — and fired 16 aces on the day — the Brit has hit more winners (136) than any woman at the US Open so far. Against Pliskova, her count stood at 45 winners against 36 unforced errors. The 28-year-old has routinely come under fire for failing at the clutch. Her last two Grand Slam losses — against teenager Marketa Vondrousova at the French Open and Strycova at Wimbledon — had once again raised question marks over her temperament on the big points. Whether she can survive the second week of the tournament remains to be seen, but for now, Konta will revel in the fact that she had knocked over the third seed in a match that stretched her technical and emotional range.