Heavy hangs the head of the king and queen, they say. On Sunday in Cincinnati, Angelique Kerber and Andy Murray could feel that weight as they tried to approach the throne.
Kerber and Murray have spent the summer in hot, if unlikely, pursuits of the No. 1 rankings on their respective tours. As of three months ago, few would have believed those pursuits were remotely plausible. Over the last four years, Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic have been as dominant as any No. 1 players in history, and they haven’t shown any serious signs of slowing down in 2016. But the ever steady and stubborn Kerber and Murray, each of whom has won a major title and reached the final of at least one more this season, have managed to narrow the gaps this summer. With Serena and Djokovic absent due to injury in Cincy, they had a chance to narrow them some more.
In fact, by Sunday, Kerber had a chance to do something truly unthinkable: take over the top spot for the first time, at age 28. If she did, she would do her fellow German Steffi Graf a favor by ending Williams’ streak at No. 1 at 183 weeks, three shy of Graf’s all-time record.
From a physical standpoint, that possibility still seemed remote as the week began. Kerber had flown to Cincinnati straight from the Rio Olympics, where she had played six singles matches in seven days. From a mental standpoint, though, those six matches—and the extra stress of playing for a medal and for her country—had toughened up the often volatile Kerber. After struggling at times against Barbora Strycova and Carla Suarez Navarro in Cincy, she had beaten Simona Halep in straight sets in the semis; when Kerber won the final point with a broken string, it seemed that nothing could stand in her way.
“I’m not feeling more pressure, to be honest,” Kerber said after her quarterfinal win over Suarez Navarro. “I’m here to really play every single match. I learned a lot from last tournaments and last matches about pressure.”
“Still, it’s a long way to go,” Kerber admitted.
She seemed to understand how tough it was going to be to clear the last hurdle.
In the final, Kerber ran into a hot-hitting player in 17th-ranked Karolina Pliskova. The Czech had beaten the German twice previously, and in theory, if not often in practice, she has one of the WTA’s most dangerous games. She has a big serve and easy power from the baseline, and that power was working all week on Cincy’s fast courts. But Pliskova does not have a reputation as a big-match player; despite her abundant talents, she hasn't made it past the third round at a Grand Slam in 17 tries. But she didn’t let that history stand in her way on Sunday. Pliskova beat Kerber, 6-3, 6-1, in 62 minutes, and hit seven aces and 24 winners in just 16 games.