Barty couldn’t land knockout punch needed

LOSING is tough to come to terms with.

Ash Barty’s unfathomable exit from a set and 2-0 up has sparked a grieving period for an Australian public desperate for a successor to Chris O’Neil’s 1978 title triumph. This was our great chance.

Barty is the world No. 1, won her lead-in tournament, hadn’t dropped a set in reaching the quarters, and wouldn’t have faced anyone ranked higher than 27th before the final.

However, the dream draw turned sour — and the fingerpointing has begun about Karolina Muchova’s medical time-out when

behind 1-2 wildly different, including the game before Muchova took her MTO.

Barty 13 winners, 30 unforced errors. Muchova 16 winners, 15 unforced errors.

As Australian tennis great, and coach of Hsieh Su-wei, Paul McNamee pointed out: “Ash Barty went from complete dominance to completely losing her way and unable to make basic shots.”

This wasn’t Barty’s first mid-match lapse this summer.

She dropped the second set in consecutive matches during her Yarra Valley Classic title run, and it was a similar story in her Australian Open victories over Daria Gavrilova and Ekaterina Alexandrova in rounds two and three.

Barty served for the Gavrilova match at 6-1 5-2, but needed a second-set tiebreak to get through.

Against Alexandrova, Barty slipped 2-4 behind in the second set after winning the first 6-2 in a canter — only to claim the final four games to clinch the win.

Barty addressed those lapses after that triumph.

“I feel like I’m learning on the go,” Barty said.

“Sometimes you have to give credit to your opponent and understand that they’re changing the way they’re going to play as well, (and) make that adjustment.

“It’s about going through all of my processes the exact same — regardless of the score — and making sure that I stick to that.”

That process came unstuck against Muchova.

Unfortunately, as with last year’s semi-final against eventual champion Sofia Kenin, Barty wasn’t able to deliver the final punch.