Courtney Nguyen, Point: World No.2 Angelique Kerber is in the midst of the most solid stretch of play in a year that has already included so many emotional and career-defining highs. Winning the Australian Open, defending her title in Stuttgart, making her first Wimbledon final, winning Olympic silver for Germany, the milestones have been there to check off.
Heading into Sunday’s Western & Southern Open final, she’s won 21 of her last 25 matches and has made the semifinals or better at four of her last five events.
Kerber has spent the last eight months proving to everyone that she is more than capable of conquering the challenges placed in front of her. The next challenge is simple: Beat World No.17 Karolina Pliskova to win her first title in Cincinnati and become the new World No.1 on Monday.
“I think now I’m showing that I’m really one of the best tennis players,” Kerber said after beating No.3 seed Simona Halep, 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinals. A win on Sunday would make her the first German to hold the No.1 ranking since Stefanie Graf in 1997. “It’s still one match away, but it’s still a match. I will not think about this yet. Let’s see what’s happening tomorrow.
“It’s a new opponent, a new day, and after that we will see what happened, it’s not over yet. Still one match to go.”
Throughout the week, Kerber has met the flurry of questions about the prospect of becoming the 22nd WTA No.1 with a shrug. When she says she isn’t thinking about it, that she’s focused only on the match in front of her, I believe her. This is a woman who has played 10 matches in 13 days across two continents.
During a press conference earlier in the week, she could not remember what day it was. She admits she is tired but her non-stop play over the last few weeks has helped her keep things remarkably simple: Wake up. Warm up. Play a match. Win the match. Recover. Go to sleep. Do it again. It has worked well.
“I came here without any expectation,” Kerber said. “I came here after Rio, after a lot of emotions what I have there. I mean, I had a great week in Rio. I won my medal which I will take home, what was always a dream.
“To come here, I was just trying to play match by match. Not thinking about my draws, my opponents, about nothing. Just going out there trying to win every match, because every match was different here. That’s why I’m really happy.
“I’m not surprised [I’m in the final], but I’m happy to go through it and be in another final.”
Kerber knows Pliskova well. They have not played in over a year but the two battled hard in two finals in 2015, both of which Kerber won in a narrow three sets. Despite her fatigue, Kerber has worked through a tough draw, beating Kristina Mladenovic, Barbora Strycova, Carla Suárez Navarro, and Halep, losing just one set all week. Her win over Halep was her tour-leading 47th win of the year and brought her season record against Top 20 players to 17-5.
“For me, there are no favorites,” Kerber said. “It’s 50/50 always when you go out there. You have to play your best, especially when you’re in the final. So that will be my goal. It’s step by step, and still one more step to go.”
David Kane, Counterpoint: Standing between Kerber and her accession to the top of the WTA rankings is Karolina Pliskova, a player who shrugs off suggestions that hers has been a sophomore slump of a season.
“Everyone is saying I didn’t have that good of a year as last year, but I didn’t have as many big matches, semifinals in Indian Wells and now this final,” she said after a comprehensive win over French Open champion Garbiñe Muguruza. “I would say it’s maybe better than what I played last year, where I made a few finals at small tournaments.”
Pliskova played Kerber on two of those relatively smaller stages, twice losing in the finals of tough three-setters in Birmingham and Stanford.
Both matches came in the midst of a busy summer for the big-hitting Czech, who peaked at a career-high of No.7 after winning the Emirates Airlines US Open Series last August, but began feeling the fatigue from heavy scheduling soon after her aforementioned run to the last four of the BNP Paribas Open.
“I was thinking about whether to go to Rio or not, and there were more reasons why I decided to not go, but I think it was a good step for me.
“Last year I played a lot of tournaments, and at the end of the US Open I felt really tired. I just want to prepare for the big tournaments better than I did last year.”
Looking fresher through a winning week at the Western & Southern Open, Pliskova has dropped just one set in four matches, her high-octane game holding up even through the windier conditions that featured heavily in her semifinal encounter with Muguruza.
“With the wind, it wasn’t really easy. I didn’t play how I would love to play. I think yesterday I played little bit better, but the conditions are always different.
“But I was happy with how I played, and so happy with the way how I closed the match.”
Her thoughts on closing out a surging Kerber from reaching No.1 were more complex than most might think, but ultimately showed the steely resolve for which she’s best known.
“I would love to have her as a No. 1 after few years. But I’ll do anything for her to not getting there.”
Photos courtesy of Getty Images.
