Australian Open: Rod Laver says Ash Barty has form to be a contender
Dealing with home-town expectations has brought many Aussie players undone at their home Open but Rod Laver is confident Ash Barty will prove an exception to the rule in 2020.
Tennis
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Rod Laver believes Ash Barty has the mindset and confidence to continue her stellar form in the furnace of home-nation expectation at next month’s Australian Open.
An unabashed admirer of his fellow Queenslander, grand slam titan Laver says Barty’s outstanding 2019 achievements will lay the platform for a strong 2020 season.
“The great thing about Ash winning the French Open and becoming world No.1 is that she was able to take advantage of her opportunities,” Laver, winner of 11 singles majors, said.
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“She created opportunities for herself and when they presented, she took them.
“I think she will be confident going into the Australian Open while, at the same time, not taking anything for granted or assuming anything.
“Ash has a lot of respect for her opponents and she’ll know it won’t be easy, but I think she has the form to be a contender.
“I’m proud of the way she put everything on the line this season, her focus was amazing.
“If she repeats that, she can maintain the levels she has reached.”
Barty is currently TAB $7 second favourite behind Serena Williams ($5) to win the Open.
The right-hander will resume in Brisbane next month before playing Adelaide and venturing to Melbourne Park.
Laver will return to Australia in the New Year, hopeful Barty can end Australia’s 43-year singles drought at the Open.
The only player in history to win all four singles majors in a season twice (1962 and 1969), Laver has released a new book, The Golden Era, concentrating on Australia’s 20-year international domination from 1950.
The book contains deeply personal insight from Laver with focus on his compatriots, notably Lew Hoad — one of Laver’s idols.
“Lew was a close friend but, as a tennis player, some of the things he did were amazing,” Laver recounted.
“He could do anything on a tennis court. He was extraordinary in full flight.”
Written by Larry Writer, the book is dedicated by Laver to “the grand players who created Australian tennis’s golden era in the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s. And to those great Australian champions who came before and after us.”
Roger Federer pays tribute to Laver and others in the book.
“The Australian champions of the golden era brought glamour and global sporting success to Australia and they created their legends in rough and ready times,” Federer wrote.
“They played for nothing in the amateur era, defected to the gruelling pro circuit where they made their money the hard way and then pioneered open tennis.
“We modern tennis players have reaped the benefits of their tribulations and triumphs.
“I, along with many others, walk in their footsteps.”
Author royalties from the sale of the book will go to the development of tennis talent across Australia “with a special focus on those living in regional areas, where so many of the golden era’s champions began their careers.”