{"id":2442,"date":"2017-05-30T03:05:25","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T07:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=2442"},"modified":"2017-05-30T03:07:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T07:07:25","slug":"konta-conquer-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/05\/30\/konta-conquer-clay\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Konta Conquer the Clay?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is fair to say that <strong>Johanna Konta<\/strong> is enjoying the best year of her life. This year the British #1 has been triumphant in <strong>Sydney<\/strong> and, of course, in <strong>Miami<\/strong>. Her <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/04\/02\/konta-konquers-miami\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">famous win in the Miami Open final<\/a> catapulted her into the world top 10. She has proven herself on hard courts and on grass too, but can she conquer the clay?<\/p>\n<p>Johanna Konta has two careers in theory: pre 2015 <strong>US Open<\/strong> and post 2015 US Open. That tournament was her major breakthrough. The Brit managed to reach the\u00a0fourth round of a <strong>Grand Slam<\/strong> for the first time and scored a win against in-form <strong>Garbine Muguruza<\/strong>. That fortnight proved she could perform in slams and at the highest echelons of the game but this was all on hard courts. Throughout her career, the world #8 has recorded\u00a0twelve top\u00a0ten wins: a staggering ten on hard courts, one on grass and again just one on clay. Konta has also made four finals on the <strong>WTA<\/strong> tour and\u00a0it is no surprise to anyone that all four of them have been on hard courts. Can she translate this form onto clay just in time?<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/663495540\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 71.548822% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/663495540?et=3bK5eZrOQ5NDbpajavvPlw&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=-9SgCuZtkQTRllP73wyMXQX8_vG0Ag6LcQ5KJ4kAVNQ=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"425\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<h3>Mixed clay court season so far for Konta<\/h3>\n<p>In 2017, the British #1 holds a 3-4 record on the clay &#8211; a poor statistic for a top\u00a0ten player. She posted a good result in <strong>Stuttgart<\/strong> by beating rising star <strong>Naomi Osaka<\/strong> in three sets before falling to <strong>Anastasija Sevastova<\/strong>. The Brit then lost in the first round of <strong>Madrid<\/strong> to clay specialist <strong>Laura Siegemund<\/strong>. Konta was able to post one more clay court victory in <strong>Rome<\/strong>, defeating fiery young-gun <strong>Yulia\u00a0Putintseva<\/strong>. Her time in Rome was terminated by Venus Williams. This is by no means the ideal preparation that Konta would have wanted but the best players play their best at the Grand Slams.<\/p>\n<p>Her game is just not suited to the dirt. Konta&#8217;s biggest weapon is her serve and that is simply neutralised on the slow, high bouncing clay. Her movement is also a weakness in\u00a0her game\u00a0and can be easily exploited on this surface. There is hope for Konta though. Just look at <strong>Maria Sharapova<\/strong>, the Russian struggled immensely on the clay but managed to find a way to post good results on it. She is now a two-time <strong>French Open<\/strong> champion. Her success on the clay has now given her the nickname that is &#8216;Clay-pova&#8217;<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/79011603\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 64.478114% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/79011603?et=aPoI5JhuQx5V5U6JLbUNkw&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=OuVHjnq6B97UcnX5XrEeLXozWH1hNdlM2AbNlKGYb6g=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"383\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<h3>Johanna Konta vs. Su-Wei Hsieh<\/h3>\n<p>The Miami champion will open play for the day on <strong>Phillippe-Chattier Court<\/strong> at 11am local time against <strong>Su-Wei Hsieh<\/strong>. The pair have met twice, once on grass at Eastbourne where Hsieh upset the home favourite, and once on the <strong>ITF<\/strong> level in <strong>Vancouver<\/strong> where Konta got revenge. Both meetings were in 2013 so they hold no real bearings on what their <strong>Roland Garros<\/strong> clash may turn out to be.<\/p>\n<p>Johanna Konta has only played two main draws in Paris and both ended in round one despair. Could it be third time lucky for the Brit? Although she has not got the greatest record on the dirt, it is still early days in her &#8216;new&#8217; career as a top player. We have yet to see the best of the world #8 and she still has plenty of time to adapt to this surface. Will she do it this year and conquer the clay?<\/p>\n<p><i>Enjoy what you read? Make sure to take a look at our <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/category\/french-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>complete 2017 French Open coverage<\/i><\/a><i> for other great content similar to this.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/684440266\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/684440266?et=fUVaZEhjRkpOeAlzeo6FFA&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=hD-yknCjXUqAHRanrMJzA8keWCQRTNP3-A2pLkEzm50=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is fair to say that Johanna Konta is enjoying the best year of her life. This year the British #1 has been triumphant in Sydney and, of course, in Miami. Her famous win in the Miami Open final catapulted her into the world top 10. She has proven herself on hard courts and on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1964,"featured_media":2452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,9,4],"tags":[970,969,789,204,60,896],"class_list":["post-2442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-open","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-2017-french-open","tag-2017-roland-garros","tag-british-tennis","tag-french-open","tag-johanna-konta","tag-roland-garros"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1964"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}