Barty finds solace with a cuddle as nerves take toll
Home favourite slumps to shock defeat by Kenin Halep wilts in the heat to put Muguruza in final
Home favourite Ashleigh Barty found an imaginative way of avoiding a lengthy inquest after her semi-final defeat. She grabbed her three-month-old niece, Olivia, and brought her into the post-match press conference.
On the court, Barty had been guilty of “tapping out” – according to ESPN analyst Brad Gilbert – during her 7-6, 7-5 defeat at the hands of the unproven American Sofia Kenin. She held two set points in each set, but promptly missed her first serves and sat back in the rallies, except for one attacking forehand that flew a couple of feet long.
But once she had arrived in the interview room, with Olivia gurgling in her arms, Barty had the perfect opportunity to broaden the debate. The deployment of a baby could thus be seen as a modern update on Boris Becker’s classic line from Wimbledon in 1987. Instead of “I lost a tennis match; nobody died”, her message was “I lost a tennis match; somebody was born”.
“It’s my newest niece,” said Barty. “My sister just had her about 11, 12 weeks ago. Yeah, this is what life is all about.
It’s amazing.”
As her companion began to grouse, she added: “Her name is Olivia. She’s telling you that right now. I mean, perspective is a beautiful thing. She brought a smile to my face as soon as I came off the court. I got to give her a hug. It’s all good.”
Another upside is that Barty (below) will remain the world No1 by an absolute street, whatever happens in tomorrow’s final between Kenin and Garbine Muguruza, the 2017 Wimbledon champion.
But the Australian drought at Melbourne Park continues. It is now 32 years since Christine O’neil became the last home-grown singles champion here, of either gender. Even the French have notched a 21st-century trophy at Roland Garros – if only just – via Mary Pierce’s 2000 triumph.
On home soil, Andy Murray was hailed as a tennis messiah when he ended Britain’s 77-year famine at Wimbledon in the men’s singles. As he looks on from his sofa in Oxshott, Murray will probably recognise the clouds of hype now sprouting around Barty. He used to develop stress-related mouth ulcers every time the grass-court season came along. Yet when Barty was asked yesterday about carrying the weight of Australian hopes, she shrugged off the impact of all the billboards, the TV ads and the front-page photos.
“They [expectations] didn’t exist,” she said. “You guys spoke about them a lot. I felt like I answered a lot of questions without knowing the answer. I’ve just tried to go about my business the same every single day, regardless of whether I was 50 in the world or No1.”
For all Barty’s protestations, she looked distinctly inhibited yesterday when each set was on the line. It was Kenin who went after the ball, and middled it, too. A child prodigy, Kenin gave her first TV interview at the age of seven, insisting that she would be able to return Andy Roddick’s serve without trouble. Now, at 21, she is in the top 10 for the first time, with the chance to climb as high as No 7 if she beats Muguruza tomorrow.
Kenin exudes feistiness with every movement, including the curious Jedi-style serve in which she opts not even to look at the ball. She hardly ever gives up a cheap point. And on those rare occasions where she does miss her target, she marches to the other side of the court with barely suppressed fury, as if raring to get back to business.
“I’m not shocked,” Kenin said. “I’ve always dreamed about this.”
The other semi-final also turned up a surprise, as Muguruza surged to a 7-6, 7-5 victory over world No3 Simona Halep. If the first match had been full of texture, pitting Barty’s slices and shape against Kenin’s angular style, this one was more like a noisy game of Battleships.
Halep admitted that she had wilted in temperatures of almost 40C. On the Australian Open’s heat scale, the needle reached 4.9 – just short of the 5.0 required for the roof to be closed. “Yes, it was very, very hot today and I felt it,” Halep said. “I would love to see the roof closed. But rules are rules. We have to accept.”
Muguruza, meanwhile, proved once again that her form is impossible to predict. After a dismal closing run of seven defeats in eight matches at the end of last season, she arrived at the Australian Open without a seeding.
Asked what had triggered the change in form, Muguruza said: “It’s tough to say, really. I guess maybe structuring better the points, using more my weapons. It’s literally half a second or one shot the difference.”