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.

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At the same time, though, Kerber’s performance was every bit as tame as Pliskova’s was bold. She began each set by falling behind 0-3; she played passively and allowed her opponent to move forward; she looked frustrated, slump shouldered and downbeat throughout. It was hardly the take-my-chance performance and attitude you would expect from someone with an opportunity to become just the 22nd woman to hold the No. 1 spot since the WTA computer rankings began in 1975.

“I’m a person, not a machine,” Kerber said afterward.

According to her, she had finally reached her physical limits. Had she reached her psychological limits as well? Kerber may have been tired, but she was also tight, and she showed little aggression until the final game, when the match was essentially out of reach. Kerber won the Australian Open this year, but she has now been runner-up at three straight important events: Wimbledon, the Olympics and Cincinnati. Two of those losses came to Pliskova and Monica Puig, women who are ranked well below her but are obviously capable of playing successful attacking tennis. On both occasions, the steady-minded Kerber allowed them to do just that. Kerber’s next opportunity to pass Serena and become No. 1 could come at the U.S. Open; if it does, we’ll find if she has learned anything about taking her chances when they come.

Murray’s opportunity in Cincy wasn’t quite as golden as Kerber’s; his own shot at No. 1 is still many wins and titles away. But a victory on Sunday would have brought him to within 800 points of Djokovic in the 2016 race. That may not sound all that close, but it's the first time in a while that there has been any race to speak of on the men's side.

While Murray isn't nearly as close to the top as Kerber, their situations on Sunday were similar, and so were the ways that they reacted to them. They’re both having career years, they both went deep in Rio and they both exceeded their expectations after flying to another continent and reaching the final in Cincy. Unfortunately for them, they both allowed their opponents to impose their wills on them in those finals.

Murray’s opponent was Marin Cilic, and he pretty much did the same thing that Pliskova had done to Kerber an hour earlier. With his big serve and strong ground strokes, he used the fast courts to pin Murray deep. Cilic’s 94-minute, 6-4, 7-5 win wasn’t as quick or decisive as Pliskova’s, but his stats were just as impressive. Exactly as impressive, in fact: Like Pliskova, Cilic hit seven aces and 24 winners. Most notably, he also held Murray to just eight winners. Time and again, Cilic was the man standing inside the baseline hitting forehands, while Murray was the man standing behind his own baseline, doing the same thing.

Like Kerber, Murray emphasized the positives of his tournament afterward.

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“I think I’m playing my best tennis just now,” he said. “It’s not even close to anything I’ve done before ... I really didn’t expect to be [in the final]. It’s obviously disappointing when you get to the final and don’t win, but it was a very, very positive week considering everything.”

The loss ended Murray’s 22-match win streak, which could end up being a positive in its own right. Now he won’t have to hear about it at the U.S. Open. For the moment, despite reaching seven finals in a row, Murray remains 1,200 points behind Djokovic; like Serena on the WTA side, you can’t suffer any stumbles or slowdowns if you want to catch him. Maybe having Ivan Lendl in his box again in New York will help; Murray ranted his way through Cincy in a way that he doesn’t tend to do when he knows Lendl is in the building.

While the story of the men’s final began with Murray, it ended with Cilic. The mild-mannered Croat closed out his victory in style, with a strong hold, and celebrated with uncharacteristic gusto. In a mash-up of Ivo Karlovic’s and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s post-match celebrations, he started with a six-gun salute to his box and them, after the handshake, he took a flying leap into the air. All of that after winning his semifinal over Grigor Dimitrov at 1:00 A.M. the previous morning.

“I went to sleep around 4:00 and woke up a little bit before 11:00,” said Cilic, who re-entered the Top 10 on Monday. “That was enough to recover ... The serve was a big factor in my game. I was hitting a lot of big serves in important points.”

The victory gave the 27-year-old Cilic his first Masters 1000 title, and made him—incredibly—the first player younger than Djokovic, who is 29, to win an event at that level. In the age of the Big Four, this is what qualifies as a youth movement. But it may not be the last move we see Cilic make before the summer is over.