Armed with new coach, approach and a nuanced game, Kerber comes full circle at Wimbledon

In 2016, Angelique Kerber became world No 1 at 28 – the oldest first-timer – after lifting the US Open title, her second Slam of the year. She had reached two more Major finals that year, beating Serena Williams at the Australian Open and losing to her at Wimbledon.

In 2017, the German went on a downward spiral, fell out of the world’s top 20 with a poor run that culminated in the defending champion’s first-round loss to Naomi Osaka in the first round of the US Open.

In 2018, at 30 years of age, she did what no other woman has done this decade in tennis – win her third Grand Slam, lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish by reversing the 2016 loss to Serena.

It was no ordinary win either, it was domination with a 6-3, 6-3 victory in only 65 minutes. After the rough patch of form and nerves she has endured, the question was whether she could hold her edge in a cauldron of Centre Court that cheered for a storybook comeback.

But for all the focus on Serena’s return after childbirth, Kerber was slowly and steadily making a comeback of her own. A comeback that has now brought her a full circle at the Major where she was a runner-up before.

The 30-year-old’s win gave her many enviable records, but the one that particularly stands out is that she is the first woman since Kim Clijsters in 2010 to lift her third Major.

She is the only player after Venus Williams to beat Serena in two Slam finals, she is the first German since Steffi Graf to win Wimbledon.

But winning her third Slam in this day and age, is a remarkable feat. It tells you the incredible level of competition and the odds she overcame to be back at a position that should already have been hers.

The WTA Tour has seen great depth in the 18 months of Serena’s absence with four first-time Slam winners and a different champion at the last eight Majors. But it has also lacked consistency at the top.

Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, and Garbine Muguruza have all done exceedingly well to win two Majors and one of them is sure to get a third Slam soon. But as Kerber knows too well, the climb back to the top is always harder than the first time. That she has made it, will only server to reinforce her once fragile mental state.

A nuanced game, a dominant win

The final itself was a great confidence boost, with a largely one-sided win for the 11th seed. At a tournament where the top-10 seeds fell within even days, the highest-remaining seed ensured that she was untroubled through the second week.

But what the straight-sets scoreline doesn’t say is the difference in Kerber’s game.

Kerber is a counter-puncher, whose defence at the baseline is her best form of offence. She will return everything you throw at her with interest, and make you play a shot you needn’t have.

With her aggression and style, Kerber was always going to be the toughest competition for Serena, who had the power but perhaps not the energy to engage in Kerber-level long rallies.

On her part, the German had done her homework against Serena, pushing her to her limit. Kerber had the advantage of beating a prime Serena in a Slam final, she had all the tools to do it again.

She made her run, chase wide angles, made her the play that extra ball and did not allow her settle in on her serve. Nullifying Serena’s serve on grass is not an easy task, but the German broke it four times, losing her’s only once with impressive calm.

The younger player struck 11 winners to Serena’s 23, but committed only five unforced errors over two sets, where the American had 24 – the most telling stat, in the end. Serena just couldn’t get her rhythm going even as Kerber kept hitting clean, going for the lines and finding them with ease.

Her powerful forehands on the line to bring up championship point were superb – at 30-3, 5-3, she kept her cool and didn’t give in to errors as she probably would have last year.

It showed how much nuance she has brought to her game in the last few months. No longer is she only ruthlessly returning and forcing errors, she is setting up points and seeing them through. Her groundstrokes are flying, but she is also making the volley runs with ease.

With her style of play, the force behind a thudding groundstroke can be a winner or a horrendous error. For a while, the error count was racking up higher. But at Wimbledon this year, she played some of the best hitters in the game and came out on top.

The only set she dropped, indeed the only match she struggled in, was against 18-year-old Claire Liu who won the girls’ event last year. But she fought hard to overcome the big-hitter. In the quarters, she got the better of 21-year-old Daria Kasatkina, in straight sets. Despite many breaks of serve, she kept pushing to control the game and did it in the end, with a brilliantly gritty display. In the semi-final, she overpowered Jelena Ostapenko with her fearsome hitting ability with quickfire shots of her own. It was a complete performance that deservingly fetched her the trophy, despite the seeds carnage.

The Fissette effect

Kerber’s fitness has always been her strength, but now she has got a steely mental edge as well. A lot of credit goes to Belgian coach Wim Fissette, whom she hired after her disastrous 2017 season. She knew she needed a radical change and didn’t hesitate to take the call.

The Belgian is known for this; he has coached four different players to wins over Serena and even talks about his head-to-head with the American. After Johanna Konta let go of him at the end of the year, Kerber joined forces with him and that seemed to have made a world of difference.

Both acknowledge the importance of the slump last year, bogged down by the weight of expectations.

“I think without 2017 I couldn’t win this tournament,” said Kerber, after her win. “I think I learned a lot from last year, with all the expectations, all the things I go through…. I try to enjoy every single moment now, also to find that motivation after 2016, which was amazing. I thought to have such a year again is impossible. But now I just try to improve my game, thinking not too much about the results, trying to being a better tennis player, a better person, yeah, trying to enjoying my tennis again.”

The German is the only woman to have reached the last eight or better at all three Slams this year. She made the semi-finals and quarter-finals at the Australian Open and French Open respectively, losing to Simona Halep, a player who can punch back with just as much energy and aggression.

Had she come up against Halep at Wimbledon, Kerber would have crossed that barrier as well with the form she’s in. Back in the world’s top five with her latest win, if she can keep this momentum heading into the hard-court swing, there is no reason why the Kerber comeback can’t get better.