Johanna Konta won the biggest title of her burgeoning career when she beat Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-3 in the women’s final at the Miami Open on Saturday.
British 10th seed Konta used an aggressive game plan to overcome Danish 12th seed Wozniacki on the Crandon Park hard court.
She clinched victory with a perfectly-weighted lob that landed on the baseline for her second title of the year, after winning in Sydney in January.
Konta was playing in her second Premier Mandatory final out of the last three, having finished runner-up at the China Open last fall.
Fresh off a third straight win over five-time Wimbledon winner Venus Williams, Konta played with relentless aggression against Wozniacki on Saturday, hitting 33 winners to just 19 unforced errors to wrap up the match in one hour, 35 minutes.
Konta got off to a quick start in the opening set, breaking at love in the first game, before the two-time US Open finalist hit back to level the opening set. The Brit led by a break twice in the opener before delivering the deciding one in the ninth game, with assistance from two double faults off of Wozniacki’s racket.
Forced to save two break points in the final game of the first, Konta came up clutch when it mattered, and wrapped up the 46-minute opener with a serve down the tee and a cross-court forehand winner.
The second set began in similar fashion, as Konta broke serve on her sixth opportunity in a lengthy first game, only to see Wozniacki hit back by winning the next two games to take her first lead of the match. With the set finely poised in the sixth game, Konta came through a hold after being forced to deuce for the first time in the set, running off the last four games to win her biggest career title.
The Brit is set to rise to a career-high ranking of No.7 following her third career WTA title; more impressively, she’ll move up to No.2 on the Road to Singapore leaderboard in the hopes of making her debut at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. Reuters
