Opinion
A decade after making her grand slam debut as a young, excited and nervous 15-year-old here at the 2012 Australian Open, Ashleigh Barty’s date with destiny has finally arrived.
The Ipswich native has come a very long way in the ten years since, initially struggling to cope with the expectation and pressure that came with being dubbed our next best hope after winning the Wimbledon girls title in 2011.
One such example was when she was thrown to the wolves in the opening round of the 2014 Australian Open, when she was drawn against then world No. 1 Serena Williams, who was coming off the most dominant season of her storied career, in the opening round.
Though Williams won at a canter – the final scoreline read 6-2, 6-1 – she had this to say about Barty post-match: “I just think she’s so cute; I like her a lot. She’s so young. I’d like to see her do really well. I think she has a game to do really well. We’ll see.”
So much so that at the age of 18 the Queenslander dropped a bombshell when, on 19 September 2014, she announced that she would be taking an indefinite break from the sport with no clear timeframe on her return.
During that time away she dabbled in playing T20 cricket, thriving in the team sport environment, before deciding to reboot her tennis career in early 2016, with her then-coach Jim Joyce saying that fans could expect to see a happier Barty on the tennis court.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
It was then Craig Tyzzer became her coach, and under his guidance Barty started to finally discover her potential, winning her first WTA title in Malaysia, where she had won her first-ever WTA match four years earlier, and finishing the 2017 season in the top 20.
Further progress followed, and by 2019 she would mount the grand slam dais after defeating Marketa Vondrousova in the French Open final and become world No. 1 before capturing the tennis holy grail at Wimbledon last year by defeating Karolina Pliskova in the final.
Winning at the All England Club last year was the perfect way to answer her critics who had questioned the legitimacy of her status as world No. 1 given she did not play again for the rest of 2020 after February due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coming into the first major of 2022 several title contenders, such as Naomi Osaka, Barbora Krejcikova, Victoria Azarenka and Paula Badosa were loaded onto her side of the draw, with the focus centring on a possible fourth-round clash against defending champion Osaka.
However, as Barty progressed smoothly through the tournament as expected, several of the other big names crashed out, one after another, leaving her as the hottest of favourites to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Trophy this Saturday night.
Not bad for someone who made her grand slam debut right here exactly a decade ago, where she lost in the first round to Georgian Anna Tatishvili in straight sets and endured the experience of playing a world No. 1 in a night match on Rod Laver Arena eight years ago.
She goes into Saturday night’s women’s championship match against first-timer Danielle Collins having not dropped a set in any of her six matches nor coughed up more than four games in any set.
Further, she has dropped her serve just once – early in the second set of her fourth-round match against Amanda Anisimova, who’d beaten Naomi Osaka in three sets in her preceding third-round match.
Barty’s ominous form, which also included claiming the Adelaide International for the second time in three years, means Collins will face a tough task coming up against not just the world No. 1 in her own backyard but also a crowd eager to see their hero salute.
The 28-year-old, who can lay claim to having an Australian connection – her trainer is former Melbourne Demons AFL player Tom Couch – cashed in on a draw that was thrown wide open by several upsets in the quarter from which she emerged.
Prospective opponents such as Anett Kontaveit, Emma Raducanu, Garbine Muguruza and Simona Halep all crashed out before the quarter-finals, leaving Collins to face only one seeded player – 19th seed Elise Mertens – en route to the semi-finals.
After disposing of first-time major quarter-finalist Alize Cornet in the quarters, Collins put on a straight-sets masterclass against former French Open champion Iga Swiatek in the semis to take her place in her first major final, in which she will start as the underdog.
(Photo by TPN/Getty Images)
Though she will be at long odds to cause an upset this Saturday night, she can take heart that she did beat Ash Barty in the pair’s last meeting, in the second round of last year’s Adelaide International, which the Aussie took a wildcard into.
Barty has, however, won their other three meetings, including in the second round of the 2019 French Open on her way to winning the title there as well as in the semi-final of the Adelaide International in 2020.
Having already seen off Amanda Anisimova, Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys in quick succession, Collins will be the fourth consecutive American opponent of Barty here at the Australian Open.
Eerily the Queenslander defeated all four of these Americans (as well as a fifth, Sofia Kenin) on her way to glory at Roland Garros three years ago.
So will history repeat? But, more importantly, can Ash Barty shake off a 44-year hoodoo and become our first homegrown Australian Open champion since Chris O’Neil in 1978?
Now that you’ve got the information above, it’s time now to crunch the all-important numbers below.
Saturday, 29 January, 7:30pm AEDT, Rod Laver Arena
Head to head
All matches: Barty 3-1.
At the majors: Barty 1-0.
Last meeting: Collins won 6-3, 6-4, second round, 2021 Adelaide International.
Last meeting at a major: Barty won 7-5, 6-1, second round, 2019 French Open.
Ashleigh Barty’s road to the final
Round 1: defeated Lesia Tsurenko (UKR) 6-0, 6-1.
Round 2: defeated Lucia Bronzetti (ITA) 6-1, 6-1.
Round 3: defeated Camila Giorgi [30] (ITA) 6-2, 6-3.
Round 4: defeated Amanda Anisimova (USA) 6-4, 6-3.
Quarter-final: defeated Jessica Pegula [21] (USA) 6-2, 6-0.
Semi-final: defeated Madison Keys (USA) 6-1, 6-3.
Danielle Collins’ road to the final
Round 1: defeated Caroline Dolehide (USA) 6-1, 6-3.
Round 2: defeated Ana Konjuh (CRO) 6-4, 6-3.
Round 3: defeated Clara Tauson (DEN) 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.
Round 4: defeated Elise Mertens [19] (BEL) 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Quarter-final: defeated Alize Cornet (FRA) 7-5, 6-1.
Semi-final: defeated Iga Swiatek [7] (POL) 6-4, 6-1.
The stats that matter
This is Ash Barty’s third major final and first at the Australian Open. She is the first Australian woman to reach the final at Melbourne Park since the tournament was shifted from Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club in 1988 and the second of any gender to do so here after Lleyton Hewitt in 2005.
She is the first woman to reach the Australian Open final since Wendy Turnbull in 1980. No Australian woman has saluted at this tournament since Chris O’Neil in 1978.
This is Danielle Collins’s first major final. She is the third consecutive American woman whose first major final has come at the Australian Open, after Jennifer Brady last year and Sofia Kenin in 2020.
Collins is attempting to become just the fifth American woman other than the Williams sisters to win a major title since the turn of the millennium. Others include Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, Sloane Stephens and Sofia Kenin; three of the four (not Stephens) have won here.
This is the fourth Australian Open final in five years to feature a set of finalists who had never previously reached the final here (the odd one out being Naomi Osaka vs Brady last year).
Barty is attempting to become the first world No. 1 to win the Australian Open since Serena Williams in 2015.
If Barty wins in straight sets, she will become the first woman to win the title here without dropping a set since Williams in 2017.
A win for Barty here would see her go into the US Open later in the year with the chance to complete a career grand slam, becoming just the second active player, after Williams, to do so. She has, however, not yet gone past the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.
This is the first major women’s final pitting an Australian up against an American since Samantha Stosur defeated Serena Williams in the final of the 2011 US Open.
Prediction
Ashleigh Barty in straight sets.
(Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
The two men’s semi-finals will be contested today, with Matteo Berrettini and Rafael Nadal to face off in the afternoon before, for the second consecutive year, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev square off in the Friday night semi.
As the only former Australian Open champion left in the draw, Nadal will start a prohibitive favourite to reach a sixth final Down Under and would fancy his chances of claiming a record-breaking 21st major men’s singles title, breaking a tie he holds with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
That is not to say that Berrettini is not without a chance though, as he has made significant inroads in terms of both career and ranking since he lost to the Spaniard in straight sets in the semi-finals of the 2019 US Open in what is their only other career meeting.
The Italian has reached at least the quarter-final stage at his past three majors, reaching the final at Wimbledon, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets.
As was the case last year, the Friday night men’s semi is between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev, and again it’s the Russian who starts as the favourite as he seeks to go one better than last year’s runner-up effort to Novak Djokovic.
This is in spite of the fact that Medvedev is coming off a gruelling five-set epic against Felix Auger-Aliassime in which he came from two sets down and saved a match point in the fourth set, while Tsitsipas didn’t face a single break point against Jannik Sinner in his quarter-final.
Daniil Medvedev (Photo by Andy Cheung/Getty Images)
Rod Laver Arena
Day session: from 12:00pm AEDT
Mixed doubles final: Jaimee Fourlis (AUS)/Jason Kubler (AUS) vs Kristina Mladenovic (FRA)/Ivan Dodig (CRO) [5]
Not before 2:30pm AEDT
First men’s semi-final: Matteo Berrettini [7] (ITA) vs Rafael Nadal [6] (ESP)
Night session: from 7:30pm AEDT
Second men’s semi-final: Stefanos Tsitsipas [4] (GRE) vs Daniil Medvedev [2] (RUS)
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