Jo Konta touched heights unseen by a British woman in more than 30 years on Saturday night when she outplayed Caroline Wozniacki to win the Miami Open and achieve her biggest payday by far.
Konta ran into the crowd to celebrate with her Belgian coach and the rest of her team after emerging the 6-4, 6-3 winner in the Florida sunshine.
Not only had she bolstered her bank balance by a whopping £950,000 but she has barged her way back into the world’s top 10 by reaching number seven.
This was the biggest title of her career, one of the four ‘Premier Mandatory’ events on the WTA Tour. They do not sound too glamorous but this is only one tier below the Grand Slams – the tournaments that it no longer seems fanciful to say she could win.
Konta, so nearly eliminated in the quarter finals and who struggled through her opening match against the world No 120, was rewarded for her more attacking intent against the Dane.
She clinched the match with a lob that landed just on the line as the despairing Wozniacki chased back. She broke serve six times and gone are the days when she would freeze with the finishing line in sight.
Serena Williams may not have been playing, but that hardly dilutes the achievement of winning probably the biggest event by a British woman since Virginia Wade took Wimbledon forty years ago.
Wozniacki has been at this level many times before, the comparative experience level of the two players emphasising just how much of a relative newcomer Konta remains at this level.
For the Dane it was a 43rd career final, while for Konta it was just the fourth. Infact she had only played this particular tournament once before, reaching the quarter finals last year.
That is a legacy of the fact that two years ago she was barely ranked inside the top 150, before the beginning of a dramatic ascent that shows little sign of slowing.
