CAN we now say that Angelique Kerber is presently sports’ happiest person?
I guess so.
After winning the Australian Open in January, she prevailed again—this time in the US Open only last Saturday in New York City’s fabled Flushing Meadows.
She was not even fully convinced that she deserved her victory in Australia.
She believed that that was a fluke—coming at the expense no less of the legendary Serena Williams.
But her team had total confidence in Kerber and egged her on to keep practicing and practicing even while she seemed on top of her game already.
After Australia, she didn’t win either of the next two majors in the French Open and Wimbledon, although she was again in the finals—at Wimbledon. She lost, yes, but that only prodded her to unrelentingly plod on and on.
And coupled with a resolve as stern and as exact as German engineering, she kept the faith.
Then she reached the finals of the US Open against Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova.
The towering Pliskova advanced with pride, wiping out the Williams Sisters on her way to a first-ever major final appearance.
But it was Pliskova’s stunning semifinal conquest of Serena Williams that became a win for the ages as the loss emphatically ended the American’s streak of 186 straight weeks as world No. 1.
Thus, menacingly therefore, Pliskova offered herself a major force to stop the German invasion.
And true enough, Pliskova expeditiously extended Kerber to the limit in a three-set thriller—the Czech defense finally cracking in 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 defeat, as the German juggernaut won five of the match’s last six games in merciless, Gestapo-like fashion.
With her second major of the season, Kerber became, at 28 years of age, the oldest No. 1 tennis player in the world.
But what made it sweeter was Kerber became the first German to become world No. 1 since Steffi Graf in 1997.
And add the fact that with her win, Kerber became richer by $3.5 million—equal to that of Swiss Stan Wawrinka’s purse after the Swiss’s marathon 4-hour, 4-set victory over Novak Djokovic in the men’s final.
Still wondering why male and female champs in tennis majors now win similar purses each?
A triumph of gender equality movement, that is.
(alsol47@yahoo.com)