No-one needs to tell Angelique Kerber of the slim margin between the summit and the abyss.
The No.4 seed became the first German woman to win a Grand Slam since Steffi Graf (Wimbledon 1999) by capturing the Australian Open in January 2016 having been match point down in the first round.
Kerber won that one eventually and on Monday, for the first time since that occasion, she faced the woman who came so close to beating her, the diminutive Japanese Misaki Doi. The lesson of Australia had been learned, as Kerber clocked up a 6-3, 6-1 win in 64 minutes.
Though Doi is only just inside the world’s top 50 she packs a mighty wallop on her forehand and covers a lot of territory in getting the ball onto that forehand as frequently as possible. Kerber, naturally aware, was prepared to slog it out in a hard-hitting contest between two left-handers.
“It was a really high level of tennis from both of us,” said Kerber. “She started really good but I also played very tough from the first point.”
There was the answer, and a place in the quarter-finals. Kerber, a semi-finalist here four years ago and the only German survivor of the ten who started out in the ladies’ singles, needed to be on full alert as Doi came out of the blocks like one of her nation’s bullet trains.
Kerber had to fight off a break point in her first service game but struck back at once, capturing the Japanese delivery courtesy of a Doi double fault, the first of three in the match.
Towards the end of the first set Kerber was getting the measure of Mighty Miss Forehand, applying enough power of her own to push Doi onto the back foot. The first set was wrapped up in 35 minutes as Doi sent a forehand very wide indeed on the third Kerber set point.
The floodgates were open and Kerber surged into a 5-0 second set lead, executing a few hefty wallops of her own. The opposition’s howitzer forehand was reduced to popgun status and though Doi fought off a couple of match points to cling onto her serve, and a sliver of respectability, Kerber served out confidently and impressively.
She had played smart tennis and acknowledged it.
“I was trying to be more aggressive today and it worked very well. I feel my tennis is getting better and better every day.”
Good enough perhaps to add Wimbledon to her Australian crown? “It’s still a long way to go,” she said. “I am just thinking now about the next match but I am feeling good, which is important for my confidence.”