Britain’s great hope in this year’s US Open in the women’s draw is Johanna Konta. The expectation levels on her have risen since her good run at Wimbledon over the summer. The Brit produced some incredible battling performances at SW19 to make a run to the semi final, her joint best-ever finish at Grand Slam (with the 2016 Australian Open). So now she runs into the US Open as one of the main contenders and the hard surface there will suit her more than the grass at Wimbledon did.
Konta has made the fourth round in each of the last two editions of the US Open but that really has to be a minimum achievement for getting past that mark in this year’s tournament. On top of that semi final at Wimbledon this year, she went to the quarter finals of the Australian Open as well so has produced the goods in Grand Slam performances this season, with the French Open an exception where she was eliminated in the first round. Konta is a 10/1 shot at bet365 to win the US Open 2017 title.
There is no Serena Williams in the draw of course because of her pregnancy which means that this is a great time for someone to make a title run. Konta has won two WTA tournaments this season, beating Caroline Wozniacki in the final of Miami after winning in Sydney against Agnieszka Radwanska. On her way to winning that Miami title, she got past both Simona Halep and Venus Williams. It’s not really her big game attitude that is going to come into question, it is her holding herself against gritty challengers.
At Wimbledon, Konta had big epic struggles to get past Donna Vekic and Caroline Garcia, both of which just wouldn’t lie down against Konta. The important thing for Konta is to get her serve working well because she is powerful in terms of points conversion off her first serve. That has to stand up and work over the course of the two weeks if she is going to get close to the title, because if it doesn’t, then opponents will have a much better chance of breaking her.
Konta’s warm up for Flushing Meadows started with a second round defeat in Toronto at the Rogers Cup against Ekaterina Makarova, but she did offer some response to that in reaching the quarter finals of Cincinnati where she was stopped by Simona Halep in straight sets, two tight sets, but straight sets all the same. Konta doesn’t want to be drawn into tight scraps in the early rounds as she was at Wimbledon, she needs to stay as fresh as possible for week two in New York.
Given her rising status in the game there may well be a Grand Slam title on the horizon for her and most likely it will come a hard court surface. Will this be the tournament where that breakthrough happens? Frankly, the women’s draw is tremendously wide open with no Victoria Azarenka there, and with Simona Halep continuing to miss big chances to make her own Grand Slam breakthrough and hints that Elina Svitolina and Karolina Pliskova may just be running out of steam a bit this year.
Women’s US Open Winner Odds
Garbine Muguruza 9/2, Karolina Pliskova 7/1, Simona Halep 9/1, Johanna Konta 10/1, Elina Svitolina 10/1, Madison Keys 14/1, Maria Sharapova 14/1, Venus Williams 16/1, Angelique Kerber 16/1, Petra Kvitova 20/1, Caroline Wozniacki 20/1, Jelena Ostapenko 20/1, Coco Vandeweghe 20/1.
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