Vandeweghe tames her emotions, elevates game

Published 6:27 am Wednesday, January 25, 2017

MELBOURNE, Australia — To hear CoCo Vandeweghe tell it, she just might have followed family tradition and become a basketball player if the girls on her team in Rancho Santa Fe, California, had been more understanding.

Her grandfather Ernie and her uncle Kiki played in the NBA. She had some talent, too, and a flair for the dramatic, sinking a game-winner from half court in eighth grade against La Jolla Country Day School.

“Banked it in,” she said on Tuesday afternoon when we spoke at the Australian Open.

But Vandeweghe said that as a ninth-grader, some of her basketball teammates were resentful that she missed some practices to play tennis.

“I was a year younger than everyone as a freshman,” she said. “I was ahead in school, so I was a fresh 13-year-old, and having people kind of just not be their nice self that they normally were and not pass me the ball. And I was just like: ‘I don’t need this. I’ll go play tennis.’ And that was literally what it was.”

Basketball’s loss was American tennis’ gain, as the 6-foot-1 Vandeweghe has made clear with her booming serve and groundstrokes during the last two rounds in Melbourne. She swept past top-ranked Angelique Kerber, 6-2, 6-3, in the fourth round, then overwhelmed the reigning French Open champion, Garbiñe Muguruza, 6-4, 6-0, in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, leaving Muguruza staring wistfully at some of Vandeweghe’s winners as they thundered past.

“Her power is paramount,” said Vandeweghe’s coach, Craig Kardon.

At 25, Vandeweghe is quite unexpectedly playing in her first Grand Slam singles semifinal. She will face Venus Williams, her American compatriot and sometime Fed Cup and Olympic teammate. Williams, 36, is the oldest Australian Open women’s singles semifinalist since the tournament became open to professionals in 1968.

“I think they both can smell it, can feel it,” said David Witt, Williams’ coach, about the prospect of reaching the final. “But it’s a whole different ballgame, and you have to go out there and produce when you are feeling those nerves. And I think it will come down to who deals with it better. Venus has been in that situation more times than CoCo, but it doesn’t mean anything. CoCo’s playing top-10 tennis right now, and if CoCo plays like she’s been playing, Venus is in for a battle.”

That seems indisputable, but it is also unclear whether Vandeweghe, unseeded and ranked 35th, can continue to strike the ball with such devastating power and precision with all that is in the balance.

Before arriving in Melbourne, she had won only three of her previous 10 tour-level singles matches, dating to July. She played well in the exhibition Hopman Cup team event in Perth, Australia, in early January as she and Jack Sock lost in the final to France.

But in Melbourne, after rallying from being down a break of serve in the third set to defeat Eugenie Bouchard in the third round, Vandeweghe has displayed higher powers. She has guaranteed herself a spot in the top 20 after the tournament.

Lindsay Davenport, the former No. 1 and a fellow Californian who has known her since Vandeweghe was 16, called the demolition of Muguruza “the best match I’ve seen her play.”

“I just sat here just like, ‘This is amazing,’” Davenport said. “To play that high-risk tennis and to see it pay off in the biggest match of her life, it’s great to see it all come together.”

Vandeweghe broke a racket in frustration — not an uncommon occurrence — during her second-round victory over Pauline Parmentier, but she has been much more even-tempered in the last two rounds, with only an occasional soliloquy, smirk or eye roll (and a dab, after beating Kerber).

“I just think CoCo is being a lot more calm on the court,” Kardon said. “I think she’s always had the game. The tennis is the easy part. Controlling her emotions and being positive has, I think, shown that there’s no boundaries.”

She also has given the impression that she is right where she belongs.

“I have self-belief,” Vandeweghe said. “I think it’s a part of me, of just how I like to conduct myself even if some people don’t like it. It’s who I am, and I put in the hard work to get here.”

She is correct that everyone does not like her swagger. In an interview on BBC Radio on Tuesday, the Czech player Andrea Hlavackova said she was “not a big fan of this kind of behavior, and it can get me fired up.”

But Davenport said there was nothing feigned or new about Vandeweghe’s approach.

“She’s always been like that, absolutely, always had it,” Davenport said. “She’s always had the ability to not take crap from anyone. She won’t, and she stands up for what she believes in. She does not care what anybody thinks about her, or their opinion.

By taming her emotions, CoCo Vandeweghe elevates her game at the Australian Open