Gone are the nerve-riddled capitulations of the season past. Johanna Konta is a second-week contender at The Championships once more.
Two years since fuelling British hopes with a run to the semi-finals, the No.19 seed has kept a flawless Manic Monday record intact.
That’s two from two, following back-to-back victories over Grand Slam champions.
On Monday, she thwarted No.6 seed Petra Kvitova’s bid for a third Wimbledon title 4-6, 6-2, 6-4. It came two days after she similarly rebounded to deny 2017 US Open champion, Sloane Stephens.
Konta required nerves of steel for this Centre Court tussle, having trailed a set and having let a pair of match points vanish.
She ended up needing three to get the job done against the two-time Wimbledon champion. But crucially, panic never set in.
Where in 2018 she could well have crumbled, this was an improved Konta, a player with greater variety, greater patience and in turn a rejuvenated self-belief.
Nerves were bound to creep in. But it was how the 28-year-old responded that mattered most.
“Of course, a lit bit,” Konta said of the late-match jitters. “But definitely didn’t put it down to me being too nervous. Petra started playing incredibly free and the balls were coming at me 100 miles an hour.
“I was expecting to go to 5-all at some point but really happy to stick to what I was doing well.”
A left arm injury had scuppered Kvitova’s chances of taking the court at Roland-Garros and denied her of any practice or matches coming into The Championships.
The lack of match-play was always a risk but in her first appearance in the second week at Wimbledon since winning the title in 2014, she made the sturdier start, finding the angles and clubbing anything short to take the opening set.
The Czech had never lost a round of 16 match in SW19 in five previous showings, but there was an immediate emotional let-down at the beginning of the second set. Konta made her pay as she guided a forehand pass into the open court to break for 1-0.
After a surprise dash to the semi-finals in Paris last month, there were concerns Konta was struggling with the quick transition to grass, following early departures in both lead-up events.
But the Briton had played her way into form in time for the second week and when she survived a seven-deuce battle on serve to consolidate for 2-0, the match had reached its turning point.
A tame backhand from the Czech coughed up a double break and after Konta had her left ankle strapped as a precaution at the change of ends, she returned to court with authority, firing an ace to level the match.
Golf legend Jack Nicklaus and five-time British Olympic rowing gold medallist Steve Redgrave nodded in approval as this battle entered its decisive stage. And it was Konta who rode the momentum to a 5-1 lead.
On Thursday, following her second round triumph over Kristina Mladenovic, Kvitova tweeted: “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.”
She carried that mantra to the brink on Monday as she pegged back two match points and held for 4-5.
With home crowd anticipation swirling Konta was able to block out the blips and the fervour. She would not be denied on her third opportunity. Another Czech, the unseeded Barbora Strycova, now stood between her and a second Wimbledon semi-final.
“Just happy to still be in the event, to be playing the best players in the world,” Konta said. “To come through tough matches against them, you can’t ask for much more as a tennis player.”
Now for keeping a flawless Wimbledon quarter-final record intact.