Angelique Kerber: From Perennial Underdog To Grand Slam Champion
“Now I am here and I can say I am a Grand Slam champion, so it sounds really crazy and unbelievable.”
Angelique Kerber was still in a state of disbelief when she was handed over the Australian Open trophy after beating world No. 1 and defending champion Serena Williams 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to win her first slam at the 2016 Australian Open, at a fairly ripe age of 28. Perhaps it was destiny that Kerber, the player who was mentored by Steffi Graf, would go on to stop Serena from tying Graf's Open era record of 22 majors, at least for now. It was a stunning upset not just because Williams was in imperious form throughout the fortnight, trying to chase the record, but also because Kerber had, for so long, struggled with mental frailty when it came to the biggest of matches.
Kerber's career can best be compared to a virtual roller-coaster with piles of ups and downs, punctuated finally with the biggest of all ups - a major title.
Angelique #Kerber defeats Serena #Williams in her first Grand Slam Final #AusOpen https://t.co/A6ggO60Vvs
— Australian Open (@AustralianOpen) January 30, 2016Born in Bremen, Germany and of Polish descent, Kerber spent the first few years of her pro career anonymously in the ITF circuit. From 2007 to 2009, she drew top players at the slams and lost; other times, she couldn’t even qualify for the main draw. But the first time people sat up and took notice of her was at the 2010 Australian Open – where, as a qualifier, she was able to reach the third round, before losing to reigning French Open champion at the time Svetlana Kuznetsova 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.
At the time, it was her best result at a major. She came off as someone with a lot of grit and determination, but also as someone who tightened up under pressure. She didn’t have a killer shot, and her serve was just a mechanism to start off the point as opposed to a potent tool. Her steely eyes belied the shy and introverted nature she exuded. She didn’t look the fittest of athletes, but her shot anticipation was noteworthy.
Out of nowhere, and in true Kerber fashion, she reached the semifinals of the US Open in 2011, having lost in the first round of all the other three majors that year. After beating seeds Agnieszka Radwanska and Flavia Pennetta, she displayed some great tennis in a three-set loss to eventual champion Samantha Stosur.
That was the real breakthrough for the then No. 92, as she would get seeded at the Australian Open the following year for the first time in her career. She just wanted it more and improved her serve. Also, she improved her fitness and her play patterns which ultimately led to her signature “aggressive counter-punching” style, where players who face her are playing against a brick wall; each one of their balls are coming back with interest.
With her first career titles in Paris Indoors and Copenhagen in 2012, Kerber established herself as a name to be reckoned with. She was able to come out of her shell a little bit. That freedom translated into her tennis: bigger hitting, more fluid movement, and great improvisation using the “squat” shot. Also used by Radwanska, this shot is about using your lower body to absorb a shot from the other end to redirect it while maintaining court position.
Victories over top 10 players were frequent in 2012 for Kerber, but she was left to rue missed opportunities at the slams where she lost twice to Sara Errani (French Open quarters / US Open 4th round) and once to Radwanska (Wimbledon semis). Those were winnable matches, but the spotlight was something she was never exposed to before and she struggled to live up to her new status as a 'top player'. That was demonstrated in her debut showing at the WTA Finals (Istanbul) later that year where she was ranked No. 5 but failed to win a match in the round robin group stage taking a tough three-set loss to Azarenka and straight-set defeats to Serena Williams and Li Na.
If 2012 was a year of accolades, then 2013 was the year to back up those good results. But it wasn’t to be. She did just about enough on the WTA Tour winning a title in Linz and reaching the finals of Monterrey and Tokyo to ensure a second straight top-10 finish in the rankings. But she couldn’t go beyond the fourth round of any major that year. Watching her throughout the year, there was a lot of discomfort in her psyche. Shrugs, eye rolls and wry smiles were more frequent than fist pumps. Perhaps, she didn’t enjoy being the hunted. She was more comfortable being the underdog.
2014 would encapsulate her career up to that point. She would reach four WTA finals, but fail to win even one. She would beat the then-reigning French Open champion Sharapova in the 4th round of Wimbledon, in a classic display of turning defense into offense along with angled shots and drop shots, but wouldn’t go deeper in the slams. She would again finish the year in the top 10, but miss out on qualifying for the WTA Finals. It was puzzling and frustrating.
The start of 2015 would provide a wake-up call for the German. She lost in the first round of the Australian Open and had opening losses in Antwerp and Doha, a sequence of results which triggered a change. She decided to break up with her coach of almost two years Benjamin Ebrahimzadeh and reunite with Torben Beltz, the man who helped her become a top-5 player in 2012. The pair decided to have training camps at Las Vegas, before Indian Wells and after Miami, with arguably one of the greats of all time in Graf. It wasn’t so much a technique-driven training as much as it was a mental one. Kerber was able to relax and find the great tennis she had in her.
But again as is the case with Kerber, she wasn’t able to produce her best tennis when it mattered most. She won four titles on four different surfaces: Charleston (green clay), Stuttgart (indoor clay), Birmingham (grass) and Stanford (hard). But she lost winnable 3rd round matches at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open where she was the higher ranked player, and was expected to win. Those were dramatic matches as always with Kerber, but it became evidently clear that the tighter the match got, the likelier she would lose.
Her confidence would be transient and act as a façade for deeper insecurities about herself and her tennis. Her last match of 2015 was the epitome of that: in the WTA Finals Singapore, she needed to win one set against Lucie Safarova in the round robin stage to reach the semifinals, but she choked. She blamed the talk of the qualification scenarios as a major source of distraction after losing in straight sets.
Perhaps the Singapore fiasco made Kerber introspect on what she wanted to accomplish on the tennis court. She has made it clear at the start of 2016 that she will no longer let the pressure get the better of her, that she won’t play the waiting game from the baseline. Instead, she’ll play with more aggression and more willingness to go after the win as opposed to expecting the other player to lose. She, indeed, reached the final of Brisbane in both singles and doubles setting herself as someone to look out for in Melbourne.
But what happened in Melbourne was hardly in the script. Kerber had to save a match point in her first rounder against Misaki Doi, ended up overwhelming Azarenka in the quarterfinals – registering her first win in seven attempts against the Belarusian – and stopping Serena Williams from making history by winning her first major in her first final.
While Kerber’s history doesn’t suggest she’s strong mentally, she seems to have hit a light switch moment when she decided to conquer her inner demons. If you had watched her throughout the Australian open fortnight, you would have seen more fist pumps, wagging of the index finger and her trademark elongation of a celebratory yell at the end of an amazing winner. Also of notice is her inner calm, even when things don’t go her way. You couldn’t help but witness the new-found confidence and swagger—which were also evident in her press conferences. She now believes she belongs at the top.
On match point, Kerber placed a dipping shot awkward enough for Williams to send the volley out, dropped her racket and fell on the court in disbelief. She became the first German woman since her idol, Graf (French Open 1999), to win a slam. And as the emotions poured out, the new world No. 2 can say she’s accomplished a dream. It’s all been a roller-coaster ride for the ambidextrous Puszczykowo resident, for her team, her family and grandparents whose tennis facility “Centrum Tenisowo Angie” is named after Kerber herself, the new Grand Slam champion.
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