Ash Barty will play her second round match at Wimbledon on Court 2 tonight at 8pm (AEST) and in typical Barty fashion that’s just fine with her.
“There isn’t a bad court at Wimbledon so wherever I’m scheduled to play on, we’ll go out there and do our best,” she said.
“The size of the court, they’re all the same. The lines are the same.”
However, if you take a glance at social media, she shouldn’t be happy. She should be furious. Livid. She should be Daenerys-with-a-fire-breathing-dragon mad that the organisers have snubbed her.
The outrage brigade has decided that what they’ve done to our Aussie girl is reprehensible. Ash Barty is the world no.1 and she should be on Centre Court no matter what.
I’m not surprised by this predictable fake outrage that was given extra fuel by Channel Seven’s scheduling dramas in Round 1 when they had the tricky situation of dealing with Kyrgios and Barty playing at the same time.
Why is it fake outrage?
Well, scheduling at Grand Slams has always been one of the toughest balancing acts.
Not only do you have 256 men and women players on the singles side but you have doubles and mixed doubles during the opening week to contend with. Out of those 256 players in singles, there’s always going to be players who feel like they deserve more of the limelight on any given day.
But most suck it up and get on with it, knowing the deeper they go in the tournament the more likely they are to be on a show court.
There’s also the local factor which happens at every Grand Slam.
Barty is on Court 2 tonight (which is still a premium show court, by the way) partly due to the large number of Brits playing.
Cameron Norrie and Jay Clarke on the men’s side and Johanna Konta on the women’s are three that organisers wanted to feature on Centre Court and Court 1.
The same thing happened in the Australian Open this year – which everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten about. First seed and 2018 runner-up Simona Halep was given Margaret Court on Day 2 instead of Rod Laver Arena.
Why?
It probably had something to do with Australia’s Destanee Aiava making the main draw as a wildcard. The organisers wanted to give Aiava the spotlight at her home grand slam, so she was put on centre court against Kaia Kanepi. She lost in straight sets but what an experience for Aiava to have!
Was there any outrage from Halep or indeed Romanian media that the top seed was snubbed? Of course not.
Outside of giving precedence to local players, Wimbledon also tends to reward consistency and champion players. We know Barty has had a meteoric rise but she is yet to make her mark at the All-England Club. Her best performance in the singles was the third round last year.
Whether she’s playing on Centre Court, Court 2 or Court 18, Barty only cares about beating her opponent down the other end. She wants to prove that she belongs at the top of women’s tennis and what court she plays on is irrelevant.
You still have to win seven games straight.
Simoc
Guest
You can be sure that those criticizing 7 for doing the right thing were those trying to promote themselves; the worst of the worst and the opposite of Barty who is among the best of the best. These self-centred challenged fools are always looking for a headline.
Winston
Guest
I tend to agree with you. But we also need to address the fact that this isn't a media beat-up, but it is a lot of being aggrieved by the events. They had to apologise on Sunrise - and you can see the Sunrise hosts were genuinely vexed by how difficult it would have been to manage it - and they did that because lots of people complained. Sam Groth's comments today is just another one. My personal opinion is that easyj is spot on, men's tennis is far more entertaining than women's. This isn't a debate about whether female players should get paid equal, this is simply about who the tv audience would prefer to watch, and it has to be a men's 5 set match over any women's match, world number 1 or not. As for Barty, I don't agree with your comment about Barty proving herself to belong. She is the world number for god's sake! She IS proven. But my sense is it probably is better for her to be out of the attention slightly. We have seen what the attention did to Osaka. I'm not saying Barty is the same, but the pressure and limelight certainly does not help. I have no doubt her coach and the rest of her support team will be telling her this is a blessing in disguise, get through the first few rounds unscathed, and then we can bring on the spotlights.
Mark
Guest
I don't usually give much credit to Channel 7 for their tennis coverage, which is generally nationalistic to a fault and treats its audience with contempt. When they did the Australian Open they excelled only in overlooking quality matches to show little known Australians or instead of showing a live match to instead show us Federer or Williams warming up or walking through the stadium gates. But I think they are getting criticised unfairly for Tuesday night. Krygios v Thompson was a quality 1st round match and by the time Barty's match started it was in a gripping third set tiebreak. Ch. 7 flipped back and forth between the two matches for about an hour in an attempt to show as much of both as possible. For all his faults Krygios is a well-known and talented player and to suggest that Channel 7 should have gone straight to Barty's 1st round match, which although it was reasonably competitive was certainly not the back and forth struggle that was Krygios v Thompson, is doing a disservice to both of those men and the numerous tennis fans who were engrossed in their match.
Mark
Guest
Well said Ben. As you note, the Australian Open has been renowned for putting little known Australians on centre court for round 1 at the expense of well credentialled non-Australians. For example, in 2009 Bernie Tomic, in his 2nd ever main draw match at a Grand Slam, was put on Rod Laver Arena at night against Gilles Muller. A number of other highly ranked players had legitimate complaints about their 2nd round matches not being on RLA when Tomic, ranked about 700 in the world at the time and playing someone ranked about 70, was headlining on the centre court. Jarmila Groth was another player who was given a 1st round match on RLA at the expense of other much higher ranked players just because she was Australian. So Australians can hardly complain that Johanna Konta, who has been a top 10 player and will probably make it back to that level this year, has been given a centre court spot at Barty's expense. The only thing you have wrong is where you say it takes 7 games straight to win a Grand Slam title. Seven games straight gives you one set and one extra game. To win a Grand Slam title you need win 7 matches in a row.
GaiusBaltar68
Roar Rookie
Would we all be upset if a few Aussie favourites didn't get Rod Laver Arena at the Australian Open? Of course we would, so why are people surprised at local players getting preference in round 2 at Wimbledon? Non issue.
easyj
Guest
Two aussie's in the middle of a 5 set thriller > #1 aussie cruising through in straight sets
Jimbob
Guest
Conflating two separate things here. There's a media beatup about her court designation tonight, but there was genuine and justifiable outrage in the 1st round, not about her court designation but about Channel 7's decision to show a prize d***head in preference to a new world no 1.