Class act Angelique Kerber proves No.1 credentials in stellar year

Angelique Kerber arrived in her first US Open final blessed with the full understanding that she was more ready for a major title than she will ever be in her career. Since pulling off the ultimate achievement in tennis, outlasting Serena Williams in the third set of a nerve-strewn final at the Australian Open in Melbourne, she had proved her credentials to back up her first major title more than anyone could have imagined.

She already showed her mental fortitude by foregoing the deep wasteland of recent women’s players who found success in one slam, only to simultaneously find their subsequent results smothered under the weight of success. After a brief interlude as she came to terms with her achievement in Australia, reaching finals in Wimbledon, at the Olympics and Cincinnati. When Serena Williams’ dramatic loss to Karolina Pliskova on Thursday ensured that she would complete her childhood dream of ascending to number one, she all but shrugged as she strutted on court 10 minutes later and laid waste to Caroline Wozniacki to reach the final.

The new number one’s readiness was further apparent when she burst into the opening half hour of the final, breaking Pliskova’s serve in the first game and piecing together almost the flawless set of tennis. In that first set, she put forward the best version of her game, absorbing all the pace from the tall, big hitting Pliskova, as she always does, but also constantly forcing her immobile opponent to move and sweeping up every time the ball dropped short.

But no matter how prepared you are for these moments, no matter how things should go, the mental game of tennis ensures that it is never easy. After being dominated by Pliskova just three weeks ago in a 6-1 6-3 demolition in the final of Cincinnati, Kerber vowed that she would ensure that her depth never dropped and the immobile Czech was never allowed to stop moving. Yet as the final swung to the third set, her ball fell short and the Czech was stationary as she swung from the hip. Her attempts to rectify her predicament only led to more errors, and her shoulders fell back to her perma-slump of years gone by.

As Kerber fell down a break, the possibility of defeat asked an interesting question of how her year would be remembered. Before 2016, her four years as a fixture at the top of her game had brought her to three significant finals, just beneath the slams, and she had lost each one. She was a great, reactionary player, but in the crunch moments she would always sit back and watch players find another gear.

With her title in Melbourne 2016, this was the year she found her ability to take risks. But then she watched Williams find another gear in an entertaining Wimbledon final, as most do, and then she was again unable to step in and stop the level of Monica Puig in Rio and Pliskova in Cincinnati. Another loss would surely suggest that, although she had stepped up to another level, the rest of her results weren’t too far out of line with her earlier achievements, just better.

At the perfectly balanced score of 3-3 30-30 in the third set, after regaining the break but immediately finding herself up against the Czech barrage again, the answer arrived. Quickly, Pliskova dragged her from sideline to sideline. Whenever Kerber tried to recover, the Czech pushed her back. It was happening again - she could do nothing but watch the match pass her by as another opponent took control. But as Kerber was dragged deep into her forehand corner, the German saw the light in the form of a small gap down the line. It’s a gap she probably wouldn’t have even seen a year ago, and she certainly wouldn’t have had the courage to pull the trigger under pressure. But this year, deep in the third set of a slam final, the 28-year-old needed no second thought. From six feet behind the sidelines, Kerber launched both feet off the ground and into the ball, breaking the deadlock with a whistling forehand winner up the line.

“Yeah, when I won the point I knew, Okay, I have the feeling,” said Kerber of the forehand. “Now just to go for it and making the mistakes I make like a lot of times before. I was not thinking too much that this is a final. I was just trying to take the challenge, third set, it's 3-All, and just go for it.”

As a result, she has now pinned her career as the greatest late rise in history. She is the oldest first-time number one in the history of women’s tennis, she is almost certain to see her name indelibly scribbled into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and from earning her millions as one of the nameless top 10 players beneath the stars, her name will forever be interchangeable with the 2016 season.

As a player who has never been highly regarded and whose talent remains less than plenty of her contemporaries and the bane of her critics, everyone wants to know how she has achieved this. The ocular explanation is simple - she just never would have have taken on the forehand she nailed at 3-3 30-30 in the third set of any important match.

Unlike a categorical retriever like Caroline Wozniacki, Kerber did counter and punch back from defence. But her entire career was built on her ability to react; using her compact strokes, her immense leg strength and her incredible ability on-the-run to seamlessly flip defence to offence. This year, she has figured out how to make her defence and offence closer to equals, narrowing the space between the two.

But the overall explanation is more complicated. How do you become a champion after an entire career and an entire existence built on being the complete opposite of one? Some evidence was provided in the wake of Kerber’s victory as journalists pushed her in the direction of their own narratives. Countless times, she was asked whether she ever doubted herself, or doubted her ability to reach number one, or doubted whether she had sufficient weapons. In response to such questions, some players will openly admit to their doubts while others will lie. With Kerber, it was striking how quickly she shut down the notion of doubt.

“No, I was always believing in myself,” she said. “And like my team, as well. They are always believing in me. They are always telling me when I was also down, ’You are a really good player. You played tough matches against the best players in the world,’”

Kerber was never good enough, but she had the courage to believe that one day she could be. She has worked harder than most players with more talent than her, and also harder than most with less than her, always focused on the goal of getting that feeling as she stared down the home stretch of a slam final. In the year of 2016, 13 years after turning pro, she has finally felt it. Twice.