Barty charge earns biggest home gong
AFTER four wins over Top 10 players for 2017 to barge to a Top 20 ranking, Australia’s Newcombe Medallist Ash Barty will be back next year to shake the women’s tennis elite again.
Barty was presented with the most prestigious individual award in Australia tennis last night in Melbourne after amassing an unbeatable case by improving her ranking from No. 271 to No. 17 during her first full year of tour tennis since her break from the sport.
In her quiet way, the Ipswich right- hander appears to harbour few nerves about needing to back up her skyrocketing year in 2018, reasoning that at age 21 she is still a young player with time to learn on the tour.
Of Australia’s top- 50 singles players at the start of the year, Sam Stosur ( from No. 22 to No. 41), Bernard Tomic ( No. 141) and Nick Kyrgios ( 13th to No. 21) have dropped in the rankings, while Daria Gavrilova’s No. 25 ranking is exactly what it was 12 months ago.
“It’s been an amazing season for me, I’m very happy with it overall,” Barty said.
“My goal for the year was be in the top 100 by the end of the year. Then it was top 50.’’
The Ipswich player beat two 2017 Grand Slam singles champions, Garbine Muguruza and Jelena Ostapenko, this year and had her first win over a Top 10 player in her singles career in August when she torpedoed Venus Williams, a dual major runner- up in the year, in Cincinnati to sound a warning to the elite of women’s tennis.
“Those wins were different and that’s sort of a good thing because it is about finding a way to win each day,’’ Barty said.
Barty was delighted that her coach Craig Tyzzer was named TA’s high performance coach of the year at Tennis Australia’s function.
Tyzzer started working with the Queenslander in early 2016 when Daria Gavrilova sought another coach and the Queenslander did not gain a WTA ranking point in her “Barty 2.0’’ campaign until June last year.
Kyrgios, Gavrilova, Australian Open doubles winner John Peers and Jordan Thompson were the other nominees for the Newcombe Medal.
Meanwhile, John Millman has risen to become the fourth- ranked Australian – and above Tomic as the top Queenslander – by winning his Vietnam Challenger final on Sunday.
Millman’s gritty return from an abdominal injury in April gathered further steam when his 6- 2, 6- 2 win over Victorian Andrew Whittington lifted him 37 places to No. 128, ahead of fellow Queenslanders Bernard Tomic ( No. 142) and Akira Santillan ( No. 145).
The Brisbane 28- year- old was ranked a career- high No. 60 in May, 2016 and was No. 190 early last month before he also made a final at a Challenger at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and a semifinal at the same level of tournament in Toyota, Japan.
Millman’s strong finish to the year in Challenger events puts him in a good place for Tennis Australia summer wildcards.