By Chris Oddo | Saturday October 8, 2016
The Asian swing has provided the perfect opportunity for Jo Konta, Nick Kyrgios and Grigor Dimitrov to shine, and shine they have done.
Photo Source: Etienne Oliveau
The Grand Slam season is over, but you know what? Unless tennis drastically changes its calendar in 2017, there will be four more majors next year. In other words, there’s not just points and prize money to play for on the Asian swing this season, there’s also the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a strong 2017 by building confidence in the fall against—let’s face it—a field that is thinned out, patched up and worn down by a long, grinding 2016 season.
Three players made significant strides towards that end this week in Beijing and Tokyo, and we’ll take a closer look at each below.
Johanna Konta
It’s been a fantastic season for the British No. 1. She earned her first title in Stanford and was knocking on the door of the Top 10 in Montreal before she was shocked by Kristina Kucova at the Rogers Cup whilst just one match away from the ranking milestone. Some waited for a regression from Konta, maybe a crack in that seemingly impenetrable façade, a bundle of out-of-character losses to lesser-ranked players, etc… But IT IS NOT HAPPENING. That’s the magic of Konta right now. She’s so steady and committed to making the most out of her tennis and she’s maximizing her potential each and every week on tour. It’s impressive to watch a player that is so dedicated to using every single tool in the toolbox—mental, physical, spiritual—to winning tennis matches.
This is not a knock on the current status quo of the WTA, but consistently is not the calling card of the elite at the moment (save a select few). Muguruza is very hit and miss, Kvitova is high, then low, then high, then low. Pliskova is raw and unfinished. Venus Williams is great on any given day but could also flop. But Konta is the opposite. She is unwavering in her pursuit of her best tennis and because of that she is going to earn more chances for prestigious titles.
Last night she outlasted Madison Keys in a tight three-setter to become the first British woman to claim a Top 10 ranking in over 30 years. Tonight she’ll bid for the biggest title of her career when she faces Aga Radwanska in the China Open final. Some players reach these types of heights and get dizzy looking down. Then the real challenge starts. Can they handle the pressure, the expectations, do they truly believe? But with Konta, who has built her rise on the bedrock of one of the strongest if not the strongest mental approaches on tour, it feels like this could be just the beginning.
Nick Kyrgios
Kyrgios has taken so much criticism since he first became a breakout star and—don’t get us wrong—much of it has been well-deserved. But guess what? Everybody develops at their own pace. Kyrgios’ game and off-the-charts athleticism just happened to develop much faster than his maturity and psychological approach to tennis. He has had trouble prioritizing and at times has let his desire to be an edgy, honest, interesting player get in the way of his ability to slip into lockdown mode and JUST. WIN. MATCHES.
Kyrgios’ desire for attention and to shake things up is what makes him exciting and a bona fide box office attraction, but he needs to find the balance and know the right time and place to air out his personality on court. He needs to relax and realize that if he “performed” half as much, and tapered down his theatrics a few levels, he’d still be pure box office gold and plenty edgy. In short, Kyrgios needs to realize that he can only be the face of tennis one way—by being the best in tennis,.
This week in Tokyo he seems to have taken the challenge of producing his best tennis much more seriously. There is a more mature air about him and the tennis has sparkled perhaps more than it ever has. His takedown of Gael Monfils was one of the most impressive, jaw-dropping matches of the 2016 tennis season and hopefully it serves as a reminder to the Aussie that he can be an even more entertaining player to watch—and a more effective one—when he walks that fine line between being a showman and being a winner more carefully.
Grigor Dimitrov
You have to love the fortitude of Grigor Dimitrov. So many people have been down on the Bulgarian because of the discrepancy between his current body of work as an ATP player and what they perceive to be his ceiling, but like Nick Kyrgios, Dimitrov should be given time to develop at his own pace. Maybe his breakout Wimbledon in 2014 happened too soon. Maybe it gave him a false sense of superstardom security when his game—and maturity—really weren’t there yet. Whatever the case, there’s no denying the fact that Dimitrov is one of the most electrifying shotmakers in tennis today. And there’s also this bit of good news for Dimitrov fans: Two years down the road the Bulgarian will be 27, while Nadal, Djokovic and Murray will all be pushing 32 or over.
No matter what happens in Sunday’s China Open final against Andy Murray, and make no mistake about it, the Scotsman comes in as the odds-on favorite, the fact remains that Dimitrov still has plenty of time to realize his full potential. And he’ll be afforded the luxury of continuing to develop at a time where the Big Four are slowly being phased out of the game. What will the future of men’s tennis be in three, four years? Certainly it will be drastically different than it is today, and certainly Dimitrov can be a major fixture at the top of the game. He’s paired with Dani Vallverdu, the former coach of Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych, and it is starting to feel like both player and coach could be hitting their professional peak in the not too distant future.
Under Vallverdu, Dimitrov reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal in over two years at Cincinnati, and this week at Beijing he earned his first career win over Rafael Nadal in eight tries to set up a final with Murray.
Could this be the beginning of a second layer of development for Grigor, one that demonstrates not just his exceptional potential, but also his ability to realize it?