By Alberto Amalfi | Friday, January 13, 2017
Johanna Konta threw a homecoming bash in Sydney.
It wasn’t a pretty party for Agnieszka Radwanska.
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Returning to the city of her birth, Konta crushed Radwanska, 6-4, 6-2, to win her second career WTA title at the Apia International Sydney.
"I’m just overall happy with how I was able to progress throughout this tournament," Konta said. "I felt each match that I was playing I was thinking a little more clearly. Overall, I’m very happy with the match I played today. I really felt I definitely maintained a high level throughout and I made it very difficult for her to do much today."
Konta knew beating Radwanska for the first time would require her best tennis.
"The thing is going into any match against Aga—I’ve played her twice before—I knew it had to be nothing short of what it was today if I was going to have a chance of coming through,” Konta said.
Winless in two prior meetings with the world No. 3, a sharp Konta blew Radwanska back off the baseline for much of a powerful 80-minute performance.
"She was just playing unbelievable tennis from the beginning till the end," Radwanska said afterward. "And normally you're thinking that she can't play like this whole match and it's gonna be even game or two that, you know, you can go forward because she's gonna have some worse couple of games. But she didn't."
The 2016 Australian Open semifinalist took the opening set on a the strength of a single service break. Konta surged out to a 4-0 second-set lead and never looked back.
Konta avenged a 6-4, 6-2 loss to Radwanska in the Beijing final last fall.
"She was just playing whole match so aggressive with pretty much everything in, and I couldn't do much," Radwanska said.
The 10th-ranked Briton blasted her seventh ace to seal a commanding victory.
It is Konta's first tournament title since she defeated second-seeded Dominika Cibulkova and top-seeded Venus Williams in succession to win Stanford last July.
The title will vault Konta to No. 9 when the new WTA rankings are released on Monday.
While she's aiming to go deep in the Australian Open draw again, Konta is counting on a championship carryover into Melbourne. She opens against former Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens.
"Obviously how I have done here, I take it as a really positive thing, as a nice reward along the way for the hard work that myself and my team have put in every day," Konta said. "But it's not a reflection of how next week will go, how the rest of the year will go. It's back to everyday hard work, because that's what dictates how I do."
The third-seeded Radwanska will meet veteran Tsvetana Pironkova in her Australian Open opener.