Wimbledon 2018: Angelique Kerber's counter-punching game has become the key to major women's tennis matches

We often talk about depth in women's tennis but who and what makes it happen? The players are in the foreground, of course, and offer a lot of variety at all levels and not just at the top of the game. This year's Wimbledon offered sealed evidence to go with that fact.

On this space, a column began with the famous words of Aliaksandra Sasnovich – one of the usurpers these two weeks – in Brisbane earlier this year: "Anyone can beat any matter. who. "These are not simple words, but at the same time they literally do not offer a lot of nuances.Of course, no matter who can beat anyone, but what is what does this mean in the broader scheme of things?

Wimbledon's draw of Angelique Kerber offers insight – the players she's defeated, players like Belinda Bencic, Naomi Osaka and Daria Kasatkina The strength to be several Grand Slam champions in the future and when they beat the top five today, the chances of a bright future outweigh it. on the short-sighted assumption that it was a marvel of a match.Guilders like Sasnovich, Kiki Bertens and Julia Goerges set up stellar races at the end of the year last and first half of this season to get results that they have done these two weeks.And this is a list that does not even include Victoria Azarenka, Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep or Petra Kvitova.

Apart from the players and their results, there can also be encounters that offer a lot of variety and intensity to the women's tour. And for a few years now, at the center of this WTA party is the intrepid masterchef Angelique Kerber, your Wimbledon champion 2018.

Kerber is popularly referred to as the ultimate counter-puncher. She can move you from one side to the other and go from one side to the other of the yard for hours. His left-handed wide serve is a weapon and his return game is currently unmatched.

Kerber means business when she hangs for dear life at the end of her two yard and somehow stretches and wraps herself up Make sure the item stays within her reach or out of sight of the opponent in the next two shots. And when you do not look, she will arrive with her favorite forehand and most lethal on the line to finish for you.

Saturday in the Wimbledon final, Kerber brought all his weapons and did not hold back. Serena Williams, who only played her 14th game since January 2017 which was incredibly (and yet makes perfect sense, but "of course") a Wimbledon final, did not move as well as she would have liked. Movement problems resulted in a host of non-forced errors. Still, Kerber had to stick to his game, keep coming back deep, keep going to the balls, keep putting the balls back in the court and that's what she did.

Tennis is a match game that they say, and Kerber's counter-punching ways lend themselves to some of the most interesting and dramatic matches. Sloane Stephens is the reigning US Open champion, Caroline Wozniacki won the Australian Open this year, Halep the French Open and Kerber won Wimbledon.

Kerber, however, brings out the highest quality tennis of all kinds of opponents. Kerber has produced some of his best tennis and has brought out the best of his opponent, Azarenka, for one of the biggest matches of recent times, in the third round of the 2015 US Open. Azarenka, which is an attacker and can both serve and return well, has the opportunity to find the open ground to rain the winners. It is possible that this match and that year were turning points in Kerber's career by regaining the glory of the Grand Slam in 2016 at the Australian Open where she beat Azarenka for the first time, in the quarterfinals, and Serena in the final.

Earlier this year at the Open of Australia, Kerber found himself in the traps of the clever Su-Wei Hsieh in the fourth round. They once again played a swinging and entertaining match with Hsieh's spin, shootout and lobs moving Kerber perpendicular to the baseline for a change, where once again his game triumphed at the end.

In the recent surge of WTA counter-punchers, Kerber and Halep came together to create something other than attritional boredom. At the recent Australian Open semifinal, which drew every ounce of energy from one to the other, they matched the punch for the punch, the return for the return and the descent at the end of the line to close the third set at 9-7. Kerber being left-handed is one of the key elements, but combined with her return, the best on tour, she has the plan to pull out entertaining, epic matches no matter what type of opponent. The German who has done her best for all the Grand Slam finals of which she has been a part testifies to this, surpassing the aggressive players of Serena and Karolina Pliskova.

She did not lose without a fight in the Grand Slam final Serena in 2016 either. In the young stars of today, we have a wide range of players with different games and abilities. An attacker Bencic and Jelena Ostapenko, a Stephens who can convert defense into attack with his footwork at the forefront of technology, and a Daria Kasatkina or Sasnovich with their abilities with the racket.

A player like Kerber, without flagrant weaknesses in his game, can counter all kinds of players. Kerber now has three Grand Slams and seems to double that statistic, which means more spectacular memorable games, expected by the dozen. The more his career expands, the more current and future WTA matches, and the greater the gift of women's tennis is.