Barty reaches first Wimbledon final
Top seed marks milestone for Aussie tennis
LONDON • Top seed Ash Barty became the first Australian woman to reach the Wimbledon singles final for 41 years after beating former champion Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-6 (3) on Thursday.
The 25-year-old will now aim to emulate Evonne Goolagong, who won the second of her two Wimbledon crowns in 1980.
After saving a break point in a nervy opening game on a sunny Centre Court, world No. 1 Barty was supreme in the first set as her all-court game flowed on the grass.
The 33-year-old Kerber used all her experience on the surface to hit back in the second set and looked poised to take it into a decider when serving at 5-3.
But Barty got back in the groove and broke to love.
Kerber’s game went off in the tiebreak and Barty surged into a 6-0 lead and despite missing out on three match points she was never going to let her opportunity slip.
A netted backhand from Kerber sent Barty through to her second Grand Slam final, having won the French Open in 2019.
She will face former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, rallying from a set down to beat No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
The Czech goes into Saturday’s final looking to capture her first Grand Slam title, having only ever reached one
other final when she finished runner-up to Kerber at the 2016 U.S. Open.
The 29-year-old Pliskova found it hard going against Sabalenka, the first seeded player she had faced in this year’s tournament, and it showed as she dropped her first set on the only break point she faced with a double fault.
She made inroads on Sabalenka’s booming serve, which reached speeds of 193 kilometres per hour, to clinch a break to love midway through the second set from which she served out to level the match.
The 23-year-old Sabalenka, playing in her first major semifinal, struggled for consistency, sending down 18 aces in the match but making 20 unforced errors including one to give up an early break in the first game of the deciding set.
Although the Belarusian rallied, Pliskova never looked in any danger, rarely breaking a sweat on her
own serve as she booked her place in Saturday’s showpiece with an ace.
Former Wimbledon junior champion Barty was forced to pull out of the French Open because of a hip injury that needed intensive rehab in the buildup to the Championships.
After a tricky start when she lost a set against Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro in the first round, Barty has warmed to the task of following in the footsteps of Goolagong on the 50th anniversary of her first Wimbledon title.
And she took it up another level against former world No. 1 Kerber, who has returned to form after a slump.
“This is incredible, this is close to as good a tennis match as I will ever play,” said Barty who, like trailblazer Goolagong, is proud of her Indigenous Australian heritage.
“Angie brought the best out of me today and it was a hell of a match right from the first ball and I knew I would have to play that well just to compete. Very proud of myself and my team and now we get a chance to win the childhood dream.”
Barty was the first Australian woman to reach a Wimbledon semifinal since Jelena Dokic in 2000 and it was only her third Grand Slam semi, so there was some early tension.
The Queenslander doublefaulted on the opening point and a couple of errant groundstrokes offered Kerber two break points.
Kerber failed to take them though and when Barty guessed right on a Kerber smash on break point in the next game, firing a forehand winner down the line, the Australian got on a roll.
Mixing her heavy sliced backhand with whipped up topspin forehands, Barty dictated the points and her only blip was a double fault at 3030, 5-3 that offered Kerber an escape route, but again Barty snuffed out the danger.
Kerber began to hit more freely in the second set and after an early break, she moved 5-2 ahead with a trademark forehand played almost in a squatting position.
Barty never panicked though and broke to love with an angled forehand when Kerber served at 5-3.
After that she was an unstoppable force.
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s Gaby Dabrowski and partner Mate Pavic lost 3-6, 7-6, 9-7 to Kveta Peschke and Kevin Krawietz Wednesday in their mixed doubles quarter-final match at Wimbledon.
Dabrowski has previously won mixed doubles titles at both the Australian and French Open and lost in the women’s doubles finals at the Olympics in 2019.
Next up for Dabrowski will be representing Canada at the Olympics in Tokyo, where she is expected to play women’s doubles with Sharon Fichman.