Britain's No.1 tennis player dominated Sloane Stephens with a devastating service game, and is now 2 wins away from her first major
- Johanna Konta reached the French Open semifinal with an "absolutely flawless performance" against Sloane Stephens on Tuesday.
- Konta destroyed Stephens in straight sets 6-1, 6-4 and, according to the seven-time French Open champion Chris Evert, "would have beaten anybody the way she played today."
- With the win, Konta becomes the first British woman to reach the French Open semifinal for 36 years, and is just two wins away from winning the competition.
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Johanna Konta just dominated Sloane Stephens and is now two wins from lifting the 2019 French Open trophy, her first Grand Slam title.
After a semifinal appearance at the Wimbledon Championships in 2017, Konta struggled for form the following year but has been threatening to win titles in 2019 after reaching the finals of two clay court events; the Moroccan Open and the Italian Open, last month.
She has scalped big-name players along the way, beating Venus Williams in Rome.
In the French Open quarterfinal on Tuesday, Konta beat Stephens for the third time this season. An impressive win alone, but the nature of her victory will have made her Roland Garros rivals stand up and take notice.
Konta beat Stephens, the 2018 French Open finalist, in straight sets 6-1, 6-4. Her service game confounded Stephens as she fired six aces to the other side of the court, winning 87% of the points on her first serve.
Konta's overall attack was equally impressive. With a combination of precision and power, her tennis saw Stephens struggle to keep up, pinging balls to impossible-to-reach corners of the court.
Perhaps this shot more than any summed up her eye for a shot:
The seven-time French Open champion Chris Evert said Konta's performance left her "speechless."
She told Eurosport after the match: "Not many matches make me speechless but the way Konta played … Konta I take my hat off to you. I've never seen her play that brand of tennis, that high quality so consistently. She served so well, she was in the zone, and she would have beaten anybody the way she played today."
The former British tennis player Annabel Croft said on Twitter it was an "absolutely flawless performance" and that Konta "was simply unplayable."
With victory, Konta becomes the first British woman to reach the French Open semifinal for 36 years when Jo Durie made the final four before getting knocked out by Mima Jausovec.
Should Konta reach the final, she'll be the first British woman to do so since Sue Barker won the competition in 1976.