Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
National party for Barty in victory over Sharapova
MELBOURNE, Australia — It was like a party at Rod Laver Arena. A partisan crowd backed Ash Barty, booed Maria Sharapova and celebrated wildly when the first Australian woman in a decade reached the quarterfinals at Melbourne Park.
Rod Laver was there watching, among the tennis greats. Prime Minister Scott Morrison in his green Aussie cap was cheering from the side of the court. It was in vogue for Aussies to be watching. Anna Wintour, too.
It took four match points and 2 hours, 22 minutes before Barty fended off 2008 champion Sharapova 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, reaching the quarterfinals of a major for the first time. She’s the first Australian woman since Jelena Dokic to reach the last eight at the home Grand Slam tournament. No Aussie woman has won it in 41 years.
She’ll next play two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who dismantled 17-year-old American Amanda Anisimova 6-2, 6-1 in 59 minutes to return to the Australian Open quarterfinals for the first time in seven years.
Danielle Collins upset three-time major winner Angelique Kerber 6-0, 6-2. She hadn’t won a match at a Grand Slam before coming to Australia — now she’s in the quarterfinals.
Sharapova won the first set but was struggling with her serve, and finished with 10 double-faults in the match. After dropping the second set — midway through Barty’s ninegame winning streak — Sharapova took an extended break in the locker room and was booed when she came back to court. That’s a rarity for the five-time Grand Slam winner in these parts.
A comeback was always on the cards, and Sharapova nearly delivered — recovering from 4-0 down in the deciding set, forcing Barty to serve it out, and saving three match points when she did.
Two seasons back from her break to pursue a career in cricket, Barty has become Australia’s best chance of producing a local champion since 1978.
Her immediate concern, though, is getting past Kvitova, who beat her in the final of the Sydney International last week.
Kvitova wanted no part of another loss to Anisimova, who beat her last year at Indian Wells and was the youngest American since Jennifer Capriati in 1993 to make it this far at Melbourne Park.
And so she went on the attack early, breaking in the first game. Kvitova was the model of consistency that the two other seeded players previously vanquished by Anisimova — No. 24 Lesia Tsurenko and No. 11 Aryna Sabalenka — were not.
She’s now on a nine-match winning streak, her four wins here come after a title run in Sydney, and is into the quarterfinals here for the first time since 2012.
“When I’m counting the years, it’s pretty long,” Kvitova said. “But, you know, sometimes the waiting time is worth for it. I’m not complaining at all.”
Kvitova broke Anisimova’s serve five times and never faced a break point. She got 86 percent of her first serves into play, and won all but five of the points when she did.
“I was going out today as if I’d never played her, because I knew she was going to go out and play her best,” Animisova said. “She came out with a really solid game plan against me. That kind of threw me off — it was different from my other matches.”