Opinion
While everyone is focused on what Ash Barty has just achieved, and that is no easy feat, no one should be surprised.
The Australian Open final was nearly a mirror image of the semi she played against three-time slam champion Angelique Kerber at Wimbledon last year.
Cruising through the first set, Barty found herself in a big hole in the second, as Danielle Collins came at her hard with two breaks of serve to lead the second in a dominant display.
But just like at Wimbledon, Barty was like a mongoose with the cobra. Never going away. Unrelenting. Always probing and fighting. Bringing it back on serve and then dominating the tie-break.
While I don’t think this will be the last time Barty and Collins will fight out a slam final, I’d like to focus on what Barty has achieved, and will most likely to achieve in the all-time WTA ranking stakes.
Now you may be thinking it’s a little too early to look at the bigger picture, like trying to compare Virat Kohli to Sachin Tendulkar midway through Virat’s career.
After all, three grand slams on three different surfaces (career surface slam) is hardly a scratch when you look at the greats like Steffi Graf, Serena Williams, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Martina Hingis and Monica Seles.
Let’s take a quick look at those giants of the women’s game in the modern (Open) era. I’ll leave it to the modern era because this could take forever if we bring in the likes of Margaret Court (24 slams) and Helen Moody (19 slams).
1. Steffi Graf: 22 grand slam titles, winning 4/5/6/7 across all four opens. 377 total weeks as world No.1.
2. Serena Williams: 23 grand slam Tttles, winning 7/3/7/6 across all four opens. 319 total weeks as world No.1.
3. Martina Navratilova: 18 grand slam titles, winning 3/2/9/4 across all four opens. 332 total weeks as world No.1.
4. Chris Evert: 18 grand slam titles, winning 2/7/3/6 across all four opens. 260 total weeks as world No.1.
5. Martina Hingis: Five grand slam Titles, winning 3/0/1/1 across all four opens. 209 total weeks as world No.1.
6. Monica Seles: Nine grand slam titles, winning 4/3/0/2 across all four opens. 178 total weeks as world No.1.
Those are some pretty impressive numbers that you wouldn’t find many 25-year-olds who had two years out of the game to boast, as Ash Barty now does.
Barty celebrates her first home slam title (Photo by James D. Morgan/Getty Images)
Monica Seles’ record would have certainly have been far more impressive, and Steffi Graf’s less so, had a rabid Graf fan not stabbed her in the back on court in April 1993, while she was world No.1 and at the peak over her powers.
But there is one metric that Barty will almost certainly etch herself into the history books on, and that is the consecutive weeks at world No.1 ranking.
As of January 24, Ash sits at 105 consecutive weeks as No.1. This doesn’t account for the 20 weeks that rankings were suspended between March and August 2020 during the pandemic.
That puts her currently fifth on the all-time list of consecutive weeks at No.1. Those ahead of her are:
1. 186 weeks: Steffi Graf and Serena Williams (tied for first)
2. 156 weeks: Martina Navratilova
3. 115 weeks: Chris Evert
With Ash winning the Australian Open, she will open up a lead of around 3000 ranking points to her nearest competitors – Aryna Sabalenka, who bowed out of the year’s first slam in the fourth round, and Garbine Muguruza, who bowed out in the second round.
This lead means that Barty could nearly take off from now until the end of the French Open and still maintain the No.1 ranking. Considering she bowed out of the French last year in a walkover in the second round, any progress past the second round at Roland Garros this year will see her add points to her total points tally.
This will make closing the gap to her even harder.
This will add another 19 weeks to the consecutive weeks at No.1 list, putting her at 124 weeks and past Chris Evert who sits on 115 weeks to go fourth all time. Then she’s staring down Navratilova’s record of 156 weeks.
She’d basically have to retain the world No.1 ranking right up until next year’s Australian open to go past Navratilova.
Based off what we saw this past fortnight, barring injury, it would be a brave punter who bets against that.
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