Ash Barty wipes floor with American Shelby Rogers for the fourth time this year

Ash Barty’s French Open defence could not be travelling any better at the moment, romping to a ruthless win over her hapless opponent.

American Shelby Rogers must be having nightmares over Ash Barty’s name coming up on her side of the draw in a tournament as the Aussie World No. 1 claimed a fourth win this year.

Playing in the first round of the Madrid Open heading into the French Open at the end of May, Barty thrashed Rogers 6 2 6-1 in an hour as her clay court dominance continues to shine through.

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Barty is in a hot run of form on clay courts, having won 12 straight matches dating back to the start of the 2019 French Open.

After sitting out the 2020 season for the most part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Barty returned with a bang in 2021.

In her first tournament since her win at Roland Garros, Barty won both singles and doubles titles at the Stuttgart Open last week.

Barty has topped the WTA rankings for 70 weeks now, largely aided by the interim ranking system which allows players to count their best 16 tournaments dating back to March 2019.

Barty has won three tournaments this year and hasn’t lost to a top 10 player since the 2019 WTA Finals, when she lost to Kiki Bertens.

But coming up against World No. 43 Rogers, who took Barty to three sets at the Yarra Valley Classic before the Australian Open and the Volvo Car Open before their meeting in Madrid, the Aussie was at her ruthless best.

Ash Barty is on a roll.

Barty won the match in just under an hour, with Rogers barely able to make any sort of a dent in the Aussie’s superior game.

One of the commentators said: “She’ll be hoping she doesn’t see Ash Barty especially early on in a tournament again, especially because the World No. 1 is playing such fine tennis.”

Speaking after the crushing win over Rogers, Barty was chuffed about her performance.

“I served very well today and I thought would be important,” she said on court after the win.

“I’ve played Shelby many times this year, we’ve played four times already and it’s always a very big challenge so I needed to make sure I was at my very best to be able to compete today.”

Ashleigh Barty manages her quick turnaround from Stuttgart well, defeats Shelby Rogers for the 4th time this season, 62 61.

12 consecutive wins for Barty on red clay, dating back to her 2019 Roland Garros run. #MMOPENpic.twitter.com/E041ExJJo1

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) April 29, 2021

Barty sent down eight aces to none at a 76 per cent first serve percentage, with Rogers not even earning a break point, let alone a break.

Ash Barty’s serve is on point.

But while her performance on clay has been particularly strong, Barty said she’s desperate to improve her best performances at Wimbledon and the US Open, where her best results have been fourth round exits.

“I’ll give it a crack. I’m not entering the grass court tournaments to lose them,” Barty said, as reported by SMH.

“We go out there, we approach it like we do every single week. Regardless of what surface it’s on. We go out there with the right attitude and we try execute our game plan and our tennis as best we can.”

Earlier, fourth seed Elina Svitolina suffered a shock defeat to Switzerland’s world number 40 Jil Teichmann but three-time Madrid champion Petra Kvitova, Angelique Kerber, Kiki Bertens and Johanna Konta all made it safely through.

— with AFP