There she defeated Tomljanovic to reach her first ever clay-court final; Konta lost in the final to Maria Sakkari despite being a set and a break up. At the Madrid Open, she defeated American Alison Riske to advance to a second-round match against third seed Simona Halep, which she lost in straight sets. The following week in Rome, Konta once again defeated Riske in the first round, moving on to face seventh seed Sloane Stephens. She lost the first set, however came back to win in three. Her third round match came later the same day due to a rain delay. She defeated Venus Williams to move into her first Premier level clay court quarterfinal. Konta defeated Czech teenager Markéta Vondroušová to reach the semifinals. Konta advanced to the final after defeating Madrid Open champion Bertens; in the final, she was beaten by Karolína Plíšková, in straight sets. Following her Italian Open run, Konta's ranking improved to 26 in the world, securing her a seeding at the upcoming French Open. Konta came to the French Open having not won a main-draw match at the venue in four previous attempts. She finally broke her 'curse' by beating Antonia Lottner in the first round, and went on to advance to the semifinals. Her run included victory over Vekic in the fourth round and a third win of the year against Stephens in the quarterfinals. By reaching the semifinals, Konta became the first British female player to reach that stage of the French Open since Jo Durie in 1983. Konta was defeated in the semifinal by the unseeded Vondrousova in two tight sets. She returned to the Top 20 in the WTA rankings after this run. Konta started her grass-court campaign with a win over Anett Kontaveit in the first round of the Birmingham Classic. She lost to Jeļena Ostapenko in the second round. At Eastbourne, Konta reached the third round before losing to Ons Jabeur. She was seeded 19th at Wimbledon and went on to reach the quarterfinals, picking up her fourth win of the season against Stephens and defeating two-time former champion Petra Kvitová en route. Konta was upset in the last eight by Barbora Strýcová. Despite losing in the first round of both her US Open warm-up events, once at the US Open, Konta went on the best run of her career to date at the venue, beating former top