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 defeats Serena #Williams in her first Grand Slam Final #AusOpen https://t.co/A6ggO60Vvs

— Australian Open (@AustralianOpen) January 30, 2016

Born 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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