Will 'little steps' this week spur Jabeur, Kudermetova on to bigger things through 2023 and beyond?

Apparently, Veronika Kudermetova is the type of person who addresses herself by name in her head. In the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open this weekend, she chose just the right time to say just the right inspirational words.

With her opponent, No. 2 seed Jessica Pegula, serving at 4-5 in the first set, Kudermetova let a chance slip away. She came close to breaking for the set, only to miss a series of forehand returns and let the American off the hook. This wasn’t the norm for Kudermetova in Tokyo. Over the course of the week, she had won tight sets over Harriet Dart, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and, most surprisingly and significantly, No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek. Now, despite being the better player for most this first set with Pegula, she was in danger of handing it over.

That’s when the 26-year-old Russian decided she needed a self-intervention.

“When it was 5-5 in the first set, I just said to myself, ‘Veronika, you just need to fight, you just need to do everything that you can,’” she said.

“And I did.”

Life can be just that simple when you’re playing with the kind of confidence that Kudermetova built up this week. Where it came from is anyone’s guess.

She had won just one previous title in her career, two years ago in Charleston. She hadn’t won two matches in a row since June. She had lost in the first round at the US Open, and to 42-year-old Venus Williams in the first round in Cincinnati. After reaching a career-high No. 9 last October, she was on the verge of dropping out of the Top 20.

Even more surprising was Kudermetova’s turnaround against Swiatek. In the last six sets they’d played, she had managed a total of four games. This time Kudermetova was helped by 50 unforced errors from Swiatek, but she also had a hand in her success. She upped the miles per hour on her serve, and the pace of her ground strokes followed.

Again, though, Kudermetova said it was a conscious mental reset, rather than any tactical shift, that made the difference.

“I tried to just believe that I can beat her,” she said. “Today it happened. I’m really happy that I managed to switch [their record] and win one match.”

But can Kudermetova make it more than one match, and one tournament run? For someone who is a somewhat undersized 5-foot-9, she has always been able to play proactive, attacking tennis, and she’s an admirably focused competitor who isn’t afraid of any opponent; in the crucial moments on Sunday, her crosscourt forehand was too strong for Pegula’s. Despite her bad record against Swiatek, Kudermetova has won five of her last six against Top 10 opponents.

Beating the No. 2 and No. 4 players in the world, in the same week, has to mean something, right?

“You just wonder what that could do for Jabeur between now and the end of the season.”

Those were the words of Barry Cowan in the commentator booth as he watched Ons Jabeur celebrate her second title of 2023 on Sunday in Ningbo, China.

They were also the words that had been rolling around in my head for much of her 6-2, 6-1 win over Russian teen Diana Shnaider. Granted, Shnaider isn’t elite competition, at least not yet; the 19-year-old came in ranked 85th in the world. Still, this was a convincing 78-minute performance from the top seed.

Even when Jabeur is sharp, she can still be prone to dips in form and confidence and shot selection, and she had her ups and downs in a pair of three-set wins this week over Vera Zvonareva and Nadia Podoroska. But there was none of that against Shnaider. In general, Jabeur didn’t play around with touch shots or changes of pace; she powered her ground strokes into the corners.

But she couldn’t avoid conjuring a little of her trademark magic near the end. Faced with a lob over her backhand side, Jabeur jumped, reached over her head, angled her racquet head, and sent back a perfectly measured crosscourt volley for a winner.

“I know the score is 2 and 1, but it was more difficult than you see it,” said Jabeur, who had 18 winners to go with 10 errors. “I felt more solid [today], I felt tactically I played very well, I had an advantage in that I had more experience than her to manage certain points.”

Beyond the title itself, the match was important for Jabeur for multiple reasons. It’s the first tournament win of her career on hard courts. It helps her in the race to Cancun, where she’s currently in eighth place to qualify for the eight-woman WTA Finals. And it was her first final since she seized up in front of the world on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Jabeur saw her success on Sunday as a small sign of progress.

“These are little steps to winning a Grand Slam final,” she said. “Playing a final here is more relaxed than playing a Grand Slam final, but I think it will help me gain confidence more, and help me manage the pressure and stress.”

Jabeur and Kudermetova will try to take the next, much-bigger step this week, when they travel to Beijing for the final WTA 1000 of 2023.