Confidence key as Pliskova targets Wimbledon title

Karolina Pliskova often refers to her “weapons”.

And why not? The tall Czech has plenty in her arsenal, most notably a venomous serve and powerful, clean groundstrokes that recall the ball-striking prowess of Lindsay Davenport.

These weapons are perfectly suited to grass, as it showed in her straight-sets destruction of Caroline Wozniacki in the Eastbourne final on Saturday. Pliskova struck 39 winners – to just 15 unforced errors – as well as 10 aces to win the most prestigious grasscourt title behind Wimbledon.

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It also positions her perfectly for a run at the Wimbledon title, which would be her first major trophy and would deliver her the No.1 ranking.

“My service is definitely my biggest weapon and if it’s working it causes the other player a lot of problems,” Pliskova stated matter-of-factly after dismissing Wozniacki in 81 minutes.

She’s one of the few players that calls it as she truly sees it, refreshing in an era of intense media training and guarded responses to questions. In a nutshell, she feels if things are clicking for her, she’ll win. If not, she might not win. But she still could.

This confidence comes across less as arrogance and more as realism. She’s one of the best players in the world, and devastatingly effective on a fast surface if her game comes together.

It’s just a fact, and Pliskova doesn’t feign modesty or caution when asked about it.

“I would say 99 per cent of the players I can beat all of them if I play good tennis,” she said last year after advancing to the Cincinnati final, having allowed then-world No.3 Garbine Muguruza just four games in a semifinal rout.

She then went on to beat then-No.2 Angelique Kerber in the final, again for the loss of only four games.

“You were playing for world No.1 so I think you deserve to be world No.1, but maybe next time,” she laughed to Kerber during the trophy presentation, a joke Kerber seemed to appreciate slightly less than the Czech.

These moments reveal a player brimming with belief, a quality apparently lacking in many of the tour’s other stars. After Muguruza won the Roland Garros title in 2016, she struggled to replicate that success, and seemed more relieved than disappointed when her title defence came to an end in June this year.

“I would say 99 per cent of the players I can beat all of them if I play good tennis.”

Ditto Kerber, who has endured a forgettable season after her breakthrough 2016, during which she won two major titles and rose to world No.1.

Yet Pliskova keeps on winning. After Cincinnati, she finally turned around her poor Grand Slam record with a run to the US Open final and followed that with a trip to the Australian Open quarters. Two WTA titles followed, as well as an unlikely trip to the French Open semifinals.

In Paris, Pliskova was not happy with her game but possessed enough of that confidence to scratch her way through to the second week.

“You can see I’m dangerous even without playing my best tennis,” she said after beating Veronica Cepede Royg in the last 16. “But there was no opponent which would just push me to play good tennis. I hope that’s going to be (Caroline) Garcia the next round.”

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Pliskova then straight-setted the Frenchwomen in the quarters before stretching the far more natural claycourter Simona Halep in a high-quality three-set semifinal.

“I prove again to myself if I play against the better players, against the top players, I can play really high-level tennis and doesn’t have to be in the beginning of the tournament,” she said.

“And I think I will beat 99 per cent of the girls with this tennis what I was playing today, so just unlucky that it was Simona today there.”

After a couple of weeks off she emerged to win in Eastbourne and now sits on almost equal footing with countrywoman Petra Kvitova – who won in Birmingham – in the women’s singles betting odds.

She’s won nine of her last 10 matches, and has reached the quarters, semis and final in her last three Grand Slam outings.

If those weapons are firing, she could very well go one step further at Wimbledon.