Having just turned 16 a few days ago, Ms Konjuh celebrated by beating Roberta Vinci quite comfortably in the end at the WTA in Auckland. This time last year she won the Eddie Herr, Orange Bowl and AO Juniors back to back in the space of a few weeks as a 14 year old, who turned 15 just before the AO. Quite a progression. At this rate she could be top 50 before turning 17. Injuries would be my big question mark: she needed time out twice in the last 12 months.
Let's hope she doesn't get distracted by some of the things others seem to fall into once they catch the attention of the world - high profile shopping trips, twitter and FB Q&As that should be the domain of champions, marketing and promotion junkets with sponsors, WTA profile interviews and videos, Youtube fun......that type of stuff. Somehow I don't think it will be a problem.
Who knows whether Ana Konjuh will be like Laura Robson, korriban :)
Anyway she's doing extremely well. I'm hopeful of a much better year for Laura too, but I do wish she would start a year with no injury concerns.
I was thinking as much of Sloane Stephens and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who have also received rave reviews from the tennis world at different times, but still have their challenges to overcome to reach the very top........and there are signs that Ana's mate Ms Vekic could find the same temptations a distraction too.
I knew Korriban wouldn't have missed this result ;)
We don't know if Vinci had a shocker, thats why I like to wait for a couple more results before making a judgement. But she does have huge potential, she could be anything, her ranking is not that eye catching, but at the same time she has had injuries, is she going to be better than the likes of Madison Keys, too early to say. Vekic has been disappointing, but I put that more down to the weak schedule which got her inside the top 100 before she was ready.
Konjuh qualifies for the AO after 3 good wins - including thrashing Savchuk, who had rolled over JoKo in QR2. Belinda Bencic also through comfortably.
I understand that Konjuh will be having surgery after the AO. Yes she might be like Laura, but if you look at junior results and initial senior results, she is a serial winner - tournaments rather than just individual matches..............and that's the stark difference for me. She's also frighteningly strong and athletic.
