This Australian Open women’s final was a real contest for only a few games. Otherwise, Ashleigh Barty’s game was too good for American Danielle Collins.
Barty just needed to get into serious trouble in the second set to wake up to the fact that she actually could lose a set in this Australian Open for the first time. Therefore, she was exposed to pressure for the first time in the tournament.
After all, she hadn’t come close to losing a set while yielding just 21 games in her first six matches in front of her wildly cheering fellow Australians.
COLLINS WASN’T CONVINCED
When Barty closed out the first set with minimal pressure, just as she had done in her first 12 sets in the tournament, she must have thought the picnic walk to the trophy presentation would continue.
She had time to stop and think how close she was to winning the third of the four Grand Slams, and this one in her native country. Barty appeared to already be daydreaming when the second set started.
How special it would be to walk up to the trophy presentation at Melbourne Park for the first time. Of course, she probably could picture in her mind the scene of her fans going totally wild.
But Collins wasn’t completely convinced that she couldn’t upend Barty and take the big trophy home to the United States, maybe even to the University of Virginia where she was a two-time NCAA champion.
BARTY FLIPPED THE SWITCH JUST IN TIME
Barty, always well spoken, polite and a lady despite her obvious superstar talent, didn’t handle the pressure very well as she dropped five of the first six games of the second set.
Just then, Barty flipped the switch and won five of the next six games to force a tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker belonged to Barty as she finished off a 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Collins to win a 14th consecutive set in the Grand Slam tournament.
Barty, despite her 5-5 height, probably is athletic enough to have been a superstar in almost any sport. She wasn’t always such a great tennis player. She was a professional rugby star in her earlier athletic life.
Now she’s the superstar of women’s tennis, having already won more than $20 million. And she’s still young at 24 years old.
Who knows what she’ll accomplish in the next decade.
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James Beck was the 2003 winner of the USTA National Media Award as the tennis columnist for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier newspapers. A 1995 MBA graduate of The Citadel, he can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com.
