World no.1 Ash Barty crashes out of Australian Open with straight-sets loss to Sofia Kenin
Ash Barty will debrief her shock Australian Open semi final loss to Sofia Kenin, before celebrating a stunning run that left her two wins short of her first home grand slam. She says the learnings will be swift and make her a better player.
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Shattered over lost Australian Open opportunities, Ashleigh Barty insists she won’t linger over the Melbourne Park semi-final defeat, vowing to learn as much as possible from the experience.
Assured of retaining the world No.1 crown after stretching her rankings lead, Barty was crestfallen by a bruising 7-6 (8-6) 7-5 defeat to Sofia Kenin after holding two set points in each set.
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With nine wins from 11 matches on home soil, Barty plans to put the lessons of the past four weeks to immediate effect.
“I’ve learnt so much over the past month,” she said.
“I’ve learnt from all of the experiences that I’ve kind of been thrown into. I’ve loved every minute.
“I won’t wait a year to put those into practice. I’ll put those into practice next week.
“The next time I walk out on court, the next time I kind of wake up in the morning, every experience you need to learn from. I’ve done that.
“I feel like as a team we’ve grown. We’ve enjoyed every single minute.
“I mean, can’t wait to get started for kind of the rest of the year.
“I feel like it’s going to happen pretty quickly and we’re going to be back sitting at this table with an Australian summer next year.”
In reaching the last four, ending a 36-year Australian women’s drought, Barty raised hopes of a famous triumph.
But she was ultimately denied by a better player.
“Yeah, it’s disappointing,” she said.
“But it’s been a hell of a summer.
“I mean, if you would have told me three weeks ago that we would have won a tournament in Adelaide, made the semi-finals of the Australian Open, I’d take that absolutely every single day of the week.
“But I put myself in a position to win the match today and just didn’t play the biggest points well enough to be able to win.
“I have to give credit where credit’s due. Sofia came out and played aggressively on those points and deserved to win.”
Barty held two set points at 6-4 in the first tie-breaker and served to level the match at 5-4 (40-15).
“I think (it was) a match where I didn’t feel super comfortable,” she said.
“I felt like my first plan wasn’t working. I couldn’t execute the way that I wanted. I tried to go to B and C.
“Yeah, I think I had to dig and find a way. I mean, I’m two points away from winning that in straight sets, which is disappointing. Knowing I had to fight and scrap, I still gave myself a chance to win the match.”
Barty’s next tournament is in Dubai next month before she transfers to the US to defend the Miami Open title.
In the interim, she will return to Queensland to soak up the experiences of the past month.
“We kind of debrief it, we enjoy it, we celebrate it,” he said.
“You don’t get these opportunities every single week.
“We get to enjoy the experiences that we’ve learned, the experiences that we’ve had over the last month, then gear up for the next few tournaments, kind of the start of the US summer.”
Barty earned just over $1 million for the tournament.