PARTY NOT OVER YET AS BARTY SURGE ROLLS ON
ASH Barty yesterday reached the world’s top 20 and also became Australia’s top-ranked woman.
The two career firsts, both confirmed on the latest WTA rankings, emphasised how far she had come in a 2017 season she started as world No.271.
The Queenslander rose three places to No.20 despite not playing last week, with Daria Gavrilova slipping behind to No.25 due to a second-round loss to Czech Kristyna Pliskova in the WTA Moscow tournament. Gavrilova had been the runner-up at the Kremlin Cup last year.
Barty, who is enjoying a remarkable return to the sport in the past 12 months, and Casey Dellacqua are one of the eight doubles teams at this week’s WTA championships in Singapore, starting on Thursday, and Barty has qualified for one of the 12 singles spots at the next week’s WTA Elite Trophy singles event in Zhuhai, China, which invites the best singles players of the year not engaged in the WTA championships.
The Queenslander was this month named among the nominees for the WTA comeback player of the year award, along with Americans Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys, and Czech Petra Kvitova.
Stephens’s return from injury to win the US Open makes her a likely winner.
But the 20-year-old from Ipswich will be under strong consideration for the John Newcombe Medal, for the best player in Australia, and the Ashley Cooper Medal, to be presented by Tennis Queensland at its awards function on Saturday at the Brisbane Convention Centre.