Anett Kontaveit extends incredible indoor winning run in St Petersburg, but can she challenge for Grand Slam titles?
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Published 15/02/2022 at 08:20 GMT
Anett Kontaveit has won 20 indoor matches in a row after winning the St Petersburg title, but how can she reach the next level at a Grand Slam? Kontaveit has been in remarkable form over the last six months, winning five titles and shooting up to No 6 in the world rankings. She also made the WTA Finals last year, losing to Garbine Muguruza in the final.
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Annett Kontaveit makes it sound so simple.
“I like to hit the ball. Indoors there's no wind, there's no sun, there's nothing that's affecting you.
“But I think that would also help everyone else.”
At the moment it doesn’t really seem to be helping everyone else, mainly just Kontaveit, who stretched her indoor winning streak to 20 matches by triumphing at the St Petersburg Ladies Trophy on Sunday.
Kontaveit is just the sixth player to record 20 consecutive indoor wins since 1989 and the first since Justine Henin won 22 in a row from 2007 to 2010.
It is a remarkable run, one that has been the centre piece of a remarkable six months for Kontaveit.
Before the start of last year, her only career title had been in 's-Hertogenbosch in 2017. She started the season ranked No 23 in the world.
But something happened in 2021. Kontaveit soared, winning four titles, matching Ons Jabeur for most match wins in the year, making the WTA Finals, where she made the final, and finishing the year ranked No 7 in the world. That Kontaveit missed out on the WTA Most Improved Player of the Year award shows how much the winner of the prize, Barbora Krejcikova, also achieved last season.
“I'm very happy to be able to continue this form last year to this year and keep a consistently high level,” Kontaveit told WTA Insider.
“I think that's the thing that I'm most proud of because I think I think every time a new year starts, you sort of have these doubts and you're not so sure how the year is going to go. But I'm really happy that I've been able to play good tennis and also have positive results this year.”
Before winning in St Petersburg, Kontaveit’s start to the season had been mixed. She made the semi-finals in Sydney but then suffered a surprise second-round loss to youngster Clara Tauson at the Australian Open.
"It was definitely a tough one to take,” said Kontaveit about the 6-2 6-4 defeat.
“Of course I was expecting so much more from myself and from this Australian Open. I came back home and I worked really, really hard.
"A bit of the pre-season training that I couldn't do because of the season being so long and having health issues, I managed to do a really good training block and get myself in a little bit better shape. I think tennis is great because we get a new chance almost every week."
There seems little doubt that Kontaveit has the game to succeed on the Grand Slam stage. Since she started working with former world No 20 Dmitry Tursunov last summer she is playing with more all-round power and is on the front foot more often. She is more consistent and has clearly found – and maintained – the winning touch over the last six months.
“I felt like naturally she’s quite aggressive, but she wasn’t really utilising that,” Tursunov told Tennis Majors earlier this year.
“I think she was playing a role of a player that she is not. And so the question was why it happens. And the question is, also can she play as a more aggressive player, or need to develop some shots or a better understanding of court positioning? It’s my job to figure out what she can add to the game to really match her character and help her bring out the best of her personality into her game.”
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Kontaveit said in Australia that one of the big changes she made was on the mental side of her game.
“I started to enjoy my matches a lot more. The change I made was very mental in that I began approaching matches differently and a little more positively. When I looked at them as just another challenge, I was able to put less pressure on myself, and that gave me a lot of freedom.”
A deep run at a Grand Slam is the next hurdle for Kontaveit. So far she has only made one major quarter-final, at the 2020 Australian Open, and has only made the fourth round on four occasions.
She has shown that she can beat the best in the world. In St Petersburg she beat fifth seed Belinda Bencic, seventh seed Jelena Ostapenko and top seed Maria Sakkari to win the title. She has also beaten Krejcikova, Karolina Pliskova, Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep, and more, over the last six months.
Compare that to Casper Ruud’s run on clay, which now stands at 15 matches after he won the title in Buenos Aires on Sunday. Ruud’s winning streak is impressive, but features only three wins over top-50 players, and only one win over a fellow top-20 player. It is much harder to imagine Ruud making the next step and competing for majors than Kontaveit, who has already elevated her game to another level over the last year.
Reaching the very top level when not playing indoors is the next challenge.
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