On December 1st, British tennis player Johanna Konta announced her retirement from the game at the age of 30. The announcement came after battling knee injuries during the last two seasons. Konta, when healthy, has been one of the better players on the WTA Tour. She’s been to the Semifinals of the Australian Open (2016), French Open (2019), and Wimbledon (2017). She was also a quarterfinalist at the 2019 U.S. Open. In her career, Konta won 395 matches, 4 WTA singles titles, and had a career high ranking of number 4 in the world achieved in July of 2017.
Konta started her career in 2008 on the ITF Circuit and won a singles title at a tournament in Bosnia-Herzegovina with a $10 thousand payout. She won this tournament just days prior to her 17th birthday. In June 2009, Konta won the Waterloo Challenger Tournament in Ontario, Canada with a $25 thousand payout. She followed that up with a victory in the Raleigh, North Carolina tournament worth a $50 thousand prize in 2010. Konta had another singles title victory in Belgium 2010 with a $10 thousand prize. That brought Konta to 4 ITF singles titles. Konta won two more ITF singles titles in 2011 bringing her total to 6 career singles titles on the ITF Circuit. She also won an ITF singles title in 2012, and two more in 2013 before shifting her focus to the WTA Tour. Konta would finish her time on the ITF Circuit with 11 singles titles.
Konta did really well in 2016 where she made her debut in the semifinal of a Grand Slam event at the Australian Open, but lost to the eventual champion Angie Kerber. Later in the year, Konta beat Venus Willimas in the final of the Stanford Classic to claim her first WTA singles title. She finished the year inside the top ten for the first time in her career. Konta continued her success the following year with a victory at the 2017 Apia International in Sydney defeating Agnieszka Radwanska for her second WTA singles title. She then picked up her third career WTA singles title when she defeated Caroline Wozniacki in the 2017 Miami Open. She also made it to the Semifinals of Wimbledon in 2017, but lost to Venus Williams. This gave Konta her highest career ranking of World Number 4. After struggling in 2018, Konta did well in 2019 making it to the Semifinals of the French Open where she lost to Marketa Vondrousova, and her first and only appearance at the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open where she lost to Elina Svitolina. Konta won her 4th and final WTA singles title at the 2021 Nottingham Open where she beat Zhang Shuai in the final. She closes out her career with 395 match wins to go along with the 4 WTA singles titles.
Johanna Konta had struggled with injuries at multiple points throughout her career, but was a tough player to beat when healthy. Upon her announcement to retire from professional tennis on December 1, the 30 year-old Konta expressed that it was the right time for her. Johanna Konta was a fierce competitor, and that’s what fans should remember about her time as a tennis player, and not her injuries.
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