Barty's date with Sharapova promises plenty

Ashleigh Barty will on Sunday play Maria Sharapova in the biggest match of her career. The players have contrasting styles, statures and experience, yet it promises to be one of the most watchable duels of the Australian Open so far.

Sharapova has the advantage of power, and all of the psychological claims associated with her five major titles, but Barty, currently ranked 15 in the world, has entered this year as one of the most dangerous players in women’s tennis.

Barty is 22 years old, and a player of genuine intrigue. It’s a quality lacking in Australian tennis since the disappearance of Bernard Tomic’s game into the wasteland of politics and self-sabotage.

Barty will not face the same kinds of problems, and it is likely in the coming seasons that she’ll realise the extent of her game.

There are several unusual things about Barty, the most obvious being her self-imposed two-year
holiday from professional tennis. Not many young sportspeople, living the finite life of money and
youth, would be able to do that and return improved.

On Friday, Barty won in high style against her third-round opponent, Maria Sakkari. Sakkari is a powerful, rising, Greek star who, after losing to Barty, tried to explain why it is so difficult to play against the Australian.

Ash Barty.Credit: Eddie Jim

“She [Barty] is unlike any other player,” Sakkari said.

This is an emerging and mysterious theme regarding Barty’s game, and Sakkari struggled to unpack it further.

“Her [backhand] slice is very difficult, and her serve was good,” she said. “I think she is very talented.”

All ball sports share in inexplicable talents like Barty’s, mostly in the form of an athlete’s timing and decision-making.

Sakkari had beaten Barty before, and with that knowledge began brightly against her on centre court.

But after 30 minutes, Sakkari began to look squeezed, and then pushed around by Barty, who displayed an array of strokes and slices of increasing accuracy until she was announced, suddenly, as the winner.

Barty is collecting high praise from a variety of voices, especially on her slow play. John McEnroe described her volley as the best in women’s tennis, and New Yorker writer Gerald Marzorati ventured to call her backhand slice “perhaps the best in all of tennis.”

Even if that remark is too generous, it holds that when you watch Barty play you feel yourself watching something unusual in the women’s game - a combination of the uniform modern striking tools with a now antiquated cunning.

She’s steady, but she exhibits the type of variation that seemed fashionable on these courts in the 90s, when Martina Hingis won three consecutive Australian Open titles by cutting balls into the short court, and pushing her opponents into their weakest places.

It is the tennis way that a host country’s best performing player will be unreasonably studied and
praised at their “home slam” until they exit the tournament, but the enthusiasm for Barty extends
beyond patriotism, and beyond even the Australian crowd’s exhausting fixation with sheer effort.

Still, for the lack of Australian company, Barty is subject to that peculiar Australian focus that
cannot be explained. You can almost feel the life escaping your body when the call comes from the
aisles at Rod Laver Arena, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”, and yet, somehow, there are always dutiful
responders, perhaps the same kind of unknowable mind that joins “happy birthday” for a stranger
at a restaurant.

To American eyes, the colourful figure of the “Aussie” sports star is, like the country itself, a thing of permanent amusement. The Executive Editor of Sports Illustrated, Jon Wertheim, explained that among American tennis media there has been much interest in Barty’s cricketing sabbatical, which they consider an “exotic, and quintessentially Australian” fact.

Maria Sharapova. Credit: Eddie Jim

Wertheim, who also commentates for ESPN, described Barty’s game as being a nice mix of power
and craft. “She’s thoroughly athletic,” he said. “But I think she benefits from not being a
commanding physical presence. She doesn’t have the temptation to overhit the ball.”

That temptation will belong on Sunday to Sharapova, who hit 37 winners in her victory over
Caroline Wozniacki. Sharapova’s last major title was the French Open five years ago but she
appears, as players tend to at the Australian Open, to be in some way rejuvenated.

It is to everyone’s benefit that Barty should triumph over the six-foot somethings, and that a
force beyond sheer power can win trophies in professional tennis. The gallery of baseline
exchanges is in want of some colour.

Unless Serena Williams is fit, it takes a brave person to make definitive statements about who will
win grand slams in women’s tennis. The last eight major trophies have seen eight different names
etched into them, a great encouragement for Barty, who might have what she needs to make it
nine.