Konta Wins First WTA Title; Monfils' Biggest Victory; Cilic, Dimitrov Coaching News; Poll Vault Gone For Good?
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2016
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Johanna Konta won the first WTA title of her career, and the biggest by any British woman in 30 years after defeating Venus Williams in a nerve-shredding three-set final in Stanford.
Konta, who a year ago was ranked outside the World’s Top 100 and playing ITF tournaments, is now World No.14 and currently ninth in the race to the WTA finals in Singapore. According to The Tennis Podcast team, who convened after the final to discuss her rise, she is increasingly looking like a Top Ten player.
Following her 6-4, 6-2 win over Dominika Cibulkova in the semifinal, Konta raced to a 7-5, 4-1, double-break lead over Williams, and looked to be cruising to the title. But she wobbled with the finish line in sight, and Williams roared back to take the set 7-5 and force a decider.
After regrouping at the end of set 2, Konta won the third 6-2 to become the first British woman since Sue Barker in 1977 to win the title.
Podcast presenters David Law (BBC 5 Live) and Catherine Whitaker...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm John McInerick. I'm Bjorn Borg. This is Martina Navratlova. I'm Matt Svillander. I'm |
| 0:05.2 | Standruinka. I'm Lighten Huat. I'm Andy Murray. And you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:19.9 | Well hello, welcome to the tennis podcast brought to you in association with the telegraph |
| 0:24.5 | just moments ago, Johanna Conte won her first WTA title beating Venus Williams in the final. |
| 0:31.8 | In Stanford, she did it the scenic route 6-2 in the third set. And by my reckoning, that is the |
| 0:38.5 | biggest title won by a British woman in more than 30 years. Quite fantastic performance from |
| 0:44.9 | Conte to defeat the great Venus Williams who was coming back at her strong and Catherine |
| 0:50.5 | Wittiger and myself are here to talk it over. And many things aside as well because Catherine |
| 0:56.0 | Wittiger is in Toronto and just about holding your eyelids open with matchsticks, jet lag to Catherine. |
| 1:02.8 | Yeah, just just about yeah, let's get this show on the road David, or you might be presenting it alone. |
| 1:09.0 | The show's on the road. We're on air. Don't worry, we're actually on air. Right now I tell you what, |
| 1:13.0 | it's about one o'clock in the morning here in Great Britain as well. So I'm not far behind you. |
| 1:17.5 | But anyway, Conte has kept spirits up and as has Venus Williams, of course, I mean |
| 1:23.6 | every time I see her play, I still marvel at the fact that we even get to see Venus Williams |
| 1:28.8 | playing at 36 years of age. And I have to say though, from 75-4-1 down double break, I thought that |
| 1:36.3 | was going to be a pretty routine win. And I tweeted as much Catherine, I made a minor fool of |
| 1:43.6 | myself as opposed to the normal major fool by saying, although I stand by it at the time, it was |
| 1:51.2 | a pretty uncompetitive match by that stage and it looked as though she was on a way Conte to her |
| 1:57.5 | first WCA title. And that is how it looked. But she wobbled quite severely and Venus Williams |
| 2:04.1 | came back strongly. So for Conte to get it done in the end, I thought was really an excellent performance. |
| 2:10.3 | Yeah, well on the subject of Venus Williams, she said in her speech, I hope to see you next year. |
| 2:14.7 | So it looks like we'll be seeing all things being well, all things being equal, but we'll be seeing |
... |
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