Cool Ash taking it a day at a time

FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 now begun across Europe and Asia, there has been plenty of movement in the world rankings.

In the last rankings Germany had taken the top spot from the US for the first time in more than two years.

But on the latest ranking they have given up their position to their old foes.

The US regained the top mantle after four impressive consecutive wins against Russia (twice), Sweden and Norway.

In other movement Canada retook fourth place from England thanks to a friendly win ASH Barty is determined to take a low-key approach to Wimbledon despite logging another watershed moment in an inspiring comeback to tennis.

The diminutive Queenslander is increasingly compared to Martina Hingis for her ability to blend guile and underrated power against bigger opponents.

But, even as she rises today to a career-high ranking after reaching the Birmingham Classic final, Barty refuses to be distracted by the prospect of Wimbledon glory.

“We’ll worry about tomorrow first and then Eastbourne, and Wimbledon is still a little bit of time away, so we’ll worry about it then,” she said after beating 2016 French Open winner and world No.14 Garbine Muguruza yesterday.

That 3-6 6-4 6-3 victory whisked Barty into the Birmingham final as she posted the first triumph in her career against a top-20 player.

It also gave Barty a provisional career-high ranking of No.53 — barely a year after she returned to singles with no ranking points to her name.

After wins against former world No.8 Czech Barbora Strycova and ex-No.2 Muguruza in Birmingham, Barty was due to contest her maiden Premier Level tournament against dual Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova last night.

“It was nice to be able to come up against top players leading into a slam [Wimbledon] and try and test myself over Sweden with Tajikistan (108th) and Kosovo (109th) entering the table for the first time.

France stayed in third place with Canada fourth and England fifth.

Australia is bidding for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023. against the world’s best,” Barty said.

“But I’m feeling confident. We’ve had a lot of grasscourt tennis now coming into Wimbledon, so hopefully we can play well tomorrow and transfer that through Eastbourne, and of course Wimbledon.

“It was important for us to take it step by step, and we’ve been getting better results the more we’ve played and the more we’ve gone on this year.

“To get a first top-20 win is pretty cool leading into Wimbledon.”

Barty has also reached the doubles final with Casey Dellacqua, facing Hao-ching Chan and Shuai Zhang overnight.

Barty, 21, was chasing her second double of the season after winning both singles and doubles in Kuala Lumpur in February.