One Very Good Day: Angelique Kerber leads trio of challengers into Wimbledon semifinal

WATCH: Aryna Sabalenka topped the career-best Slam result she earned Monday with a maiden semifinal at Wimbledon.

“You can find out anything you want to know about a person by putting him on Centre Court at Wimbledon,” John Newcombe once said. On a bad day, according to him, “Your character unravels, strand by strand.”

What happens on a good day?

So far at this year’s Wimbledon, we’ve been witnessing the opposite of Newk’s unraveling. Three of the four women’s semifinalists—Angelique Kerber, Karolina Pliskova, and Aryna Sabalenka—have been playing the way many of us have wished they would play for years. The various flaws and limitations that have held them back or cost them wins in the past have vanished over the course of the fortnight. It’s not hard to figure out why: This is Wimbledon.

“I’m really enjoying every second of my time on the court,” Sabalenka said on Tuesday, after beating Ons Jabeur, 6-4, 6-3, to make her first Grand Slam semifinal.

I said to myself, ‘This time you have to stay aggressive, you have to dictate. If you miss, [that’s OK], but go for it. It’s better to miss it when you try to hit the ball instead of when you just put the racquet and the ball just flies away. Aryna Sabalenka

Sabalenka was talking in part about the grass surface, which has rewarded her blazingly powerful groundstrokes over the last two weeks. Often in the past, and especially at the majors, she has had trouble maintaining a balance between safety and aggressiveness. A few mistakes could cause her to become tentative and think too much; for Sabalenka, that’s when the errors start to flow. At Wimbledon, she has been determined to keep firing as fearlessly as possible.

“I said to myself, ‘This time you have to stay aggressive, you have to dictate. If you miss, [that’s OK], but go for it,” Sabalenka said after her fourth-round win over Elena Rybakina. “It’s better to miss it when you try to hit the ball instead of when you just put the racquet and the ball just flies away.”

Since Sabalenka won the WTA Newcomer of the Year in 2018, most tennis viewers have been waiting for the time when this most physically gifted of athletes rises to the top of the rankings and challenges for Slam titles. That moment seems to have come.

For Pliskova, who is also into the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time, the issue has been her seeming diffidence about winning and losing. She has always had some of the purest timing, and easiest power, in the game, as well as the best serve this side of Serena’s. But her level of play can rise and fall precipitously from one set to the next. While she may be fighting as hard as she can internally, it’s hard to see it on the outside. Before this event, time seemed to running short for the 29-year-old Czech to make good on her obvious potential. She lost in the third round at the Australian Open and the second round at Roland Garros, and had dropped out of the Top 10.

“Even like people which are former players, they would usually come and say, ‘What happened there? Why you not playing that well?’” Pliskova said today, about reactions to her recent losses.

But there have been no head-scratching dips in her play in her first five matches at Wimbledon. Pliskova is the only player in either draw who has yet to drop a set. When her quarterfinal opponent, Viktorija Golubic, tried to make a last stand at 2-4 in the second, Pliskova, on another day and in another tournament, might have surrendered a few games, or even the set. This time held firm and closed right away.

“You can’t really wait for some mistakes,” Pliskova said of her mindset on grass. “You need to go for it. So that’s somehow the mindset since we started this, actually all those tournaments on grass, because there you cannot really wait and run and see.”

“I believe if I go for it I have a big chance to beat anybody. That’s the plan.”

Pliskova once seemed like player who, if she got on a roll, could overrun everyone during the two weeks of a major. The chance to do it at Wimbledon has given her the motivation, and the grass has brought out her best, most aggressive instincts.

You never know what can happen. Two weeks are really long. The conditions can change. It can rain. Then it’s really hot outside. You have to stay focused in your own way, on your routine, taking every single day by day. Angelique Kerber

But the player who seems to take the most inspiration from Wimbledon these days is Kerber. As a natural defender, grass wouldn’t seem to be of much help to her. But she’s dexterous and athletic enough to fend off other players’ power, and the surface makes her flat, angled counter-punches move through the court a little faster.

More important, though, is the way Kerber is hanging in mentally at Wimbledon. When she falls behind or faces adversity, she can get annoyed, lose her belief, and start looking like wants to be anywhere else but on a tennis court. Twice in her first five matches she had an opportunity to go that route again: In her second-round war of attrition against Sara Sorribes Tormo, and when she lost the first set 6-2 to Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the third round. In both cases, Kerber stayed calm, showed little anger, and never caved. As the 2018 champion here, she knows how far a little bit of extra patience and persistence can take her.

“I think the key is just being focused on every single day,” Kerber said. “You never know what can happen. Two weeks are really long. The conditions can change. It can rain. Then it’s really hot outside. You have to stay focused in your own way, on your routine, taking every single day by day.”

Fans of Sabalenka, Pliskova and Kerber may wish their favorites could play like this all the time, that they could banish their flaws and accentuate their strengths every time they take the court. But then not every place is Wimbledon. As John Newcombe said, we can find out anything we want to know about a person there. So far this year, we’ve found what these three women play like when they’re at their best.