Ash Barty earned a hard-fought 6-4 6-3 win over Anna Blinkova to reach the third round of Wimbledon.
The world number one didn’t have everything her own way despite winning in straight sets.
In the last 32 Barty will now face Katerina Siniakova who beat Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets.
It was a tough start for the Australian as her Russian opponent started off aggressively and earned the early break for a 2-0 lead.
However Barty struck back as she often does with some good point construction and attacking forehand winners.
The world number 89 showed no fear in her approach despite that setback as she continued to extend the rallies and take advantage of Barty’s lack of confidence.
In a scrappy latter stages of the opening set both players shared breaks which culminated in Barty breaking for the third time in the set.
At this stage you can’t give the best players too many opportunities otherwise they will punish you and that’s exactly what the top seed did as she served out the opening set to love.
Momentum was with Barty and she carried that momentum into the second as she broke in the opening.
A mixture of quality angles mixed with powerful groundstrokes saw her make good opportunities on Blinkova’s serve.
However a lack of match-play since her injury at Roland Garros has seen her lack that clinical edge and Blinkova made that count as she broke again for 2-2.
The Russian continued her aggressive play as she managed to neutralise Barty’s slice well with some topspin.
Once again though, the world number one found her rhythm on return as she broke for a 4-3 lead.
After saving four break points in the next game, Barty once again broke serve to close out a tricky match.
In her post-match interview Barty praised her opponent’s level of play, “We had to do a lot of homework to try to figure out her game. She played a great match today – a few points here and there and it could have been a different story. I’m happy to be able to get through and get another opportunity to play.”
Next for Barty will be Katerina Siniakova on Saturday. Two players who did not survive the second round though were Elina Svitolina and Maria Sakkari.
Svitolina fell to a 6-3 6-4 defeat to Poland’s Magda Linette while Sakkari lost to Shelby Rogers 7-5 6-4.
