Jo Konta beats American Sloane Stephens to reach the French Open semi-finals and bank £500,000
The Brit cruised into the last four at Roland Garros with a dominant 6-1 6-4 victory over Stephens on Court Philippe-Chatrier. She is the first Brit since Jo Durie in 1983 to go this far in Paris
JO Konta’s French Open fairy-tale continues as she becomes the first British woman to reach the semi-finals here for 36 years.
The Brit produced another dominant and sublime display of tennis to thrash American Sloane Stephens 6-1 6-4 in 71 minutes on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
The win means Konta will earn more than £523,000 in prize money - of course there are far greater riches if she can win her next match.
Against a player of considerable calibre and skill, the winner of the 2017 US Open no less, Konta maintained her rebirth on clay this year and showed this turnaround in form is no fluke.
For a player who had not won a single match in the main draw here in her previous four visits, Konta is now only one match away, possibly just two sets, from appearing in the final.
She is the first Brit in the semi-finals in Paris since Jo Durie's heroics in 1983. In the next round, she will play the unseeded Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova but the way she has found her touch and composure on the red stuff she must probably feel destiny is in her corner.
Konta had won her two previous meetings with Stephens, in Brisbane and Rome, and those results would have surely given her considerable confidence heading in to this heavyweight clash.
Stephens, the world No.7, hits the ball as hard as anybody on the circuit and has already experienced success at the highest level.
Without doubt she represented the toughest test Konta has had to face during all her years at Roland Garros.
The first game, which took eight minutes, was a right old tussle, which Konta managed to negotiate, and involved two aces and a double fault from the Brit.
Stephens, 26, would have felt shell-shocked that her service game was unravelled twice in the first set to give Konta such an significant advantage.
But then the Brit's returning, at times, was of the highest quality and she managed to unpick the younger American with her sheer aggression.
Konta, 28, cleaned up the first set in only 32 minutes and the watching British fans were gobsmacked by the efficiency in which she tore apart the Yank.
At the start of the second set, Konta showed her fighting qualities and made sure Stephens's feeling of deflation would continue as she enjoyed a key break of service in the opening game.
That one break proved to be more than enough to see out the set, thanks to serving of an exceptional standard.
Sue Barker, long before she became a famous BBC presenter and broadcaster, won the French Open for Britain in 1976, but the way things are going, Konta could so easily match that achievement on Saturday.
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Konta said: "Wow, to play a match on the new court, and to play one of best players in world, at this level, I am so proud.
"I am glad I could enjoy this moment, I am so pleased to win here.
"It's hard to say if it's one of my best matches, but the conditions were a factor, it was super windy, and Sloane is the kind of opponent who could run away with the match and I had to be prepared. I am glad I could keep her on the back foot. "
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