Ash Barty demolishes Alison Van Uytvanck in Wimbledon second round

Ash Barty has continued her stunning form, demolishing Alison Van Uytvanck, and is poised to play on one of the main show courts.

Australia's Ashleigh Barty returns against Belgium's Alison van Uytvanck during their women's singles second round match. Picture: AFP

World number one Ashleigh Barty has continued her stunning form, demolishing Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck in straight sets and is poised to finally play on one of the main show courts of Wimbledon in her next round.

Barty wrapped up a workmanlike 6-1, 6-3 victory over Van Uytvanck in under an hour and will now move through to the third round of Wimbledon, facing British number one Harriet Dart, who is world ranked 182 on Saturday afternoon.

With the British woman playing the world number one, there is a strong likelihood the match will be scheduled for centre court.

Barty said she was prepared for Dart to receive strong support from the capacity crowd and enthused that it would be ‘’incredible to play on the beautiful centre court’’.

“I wouldn’t be playing a British crowd,” Barty said. “I’m playing against Harriet. Yes, she’ll get more support being in Britain, as I would if we were in Australia. It’s no different.’’

Barty was asked if she was staying around to support fellow Australian Nick Kyrgios take on Rafael Nadal on the centre court, but Barty fired a verbal backhander, with a smile.

“I think I’ll be watching the cricket this afternoon,’’ she said.

She also didn’t comment on Bernard Tomic’s huge $82,000 fine, the total sum of his Championship payment, for not playing to a professional standard.

“I didn’t see the match, so I can’t comment,’’ she said.

There was no hiccup in Barty’s plan yesterday as she raced through the first set against Van Uytvanck, seemingly without breaking into a sweat in the near perfect sunny conditions, and taking just 25 minutes to win it 6-1. It took another half an hour, with one small blip in the second set, before Barty wrapped up the game 6-3.

Barty said “I was happy to have my running shoes on today’’, referring to the mobility needed to nullify her opponent’s game.

“I was happy to go slice to slice’’.

“It was a really clean match overall, it started well and there were not too many errors, a bit of a blemish to serve out the match, but I am really pleased.’’

Van Uytvanck held her serve in the first game of the second set, and even broke Barty’s serve in the eighth game, but although she was strong at the net, she couldn’t match Barty’s fierce forehand strokes. Barty then broke Van Uytvanck’s serve, finishing off the match with a backhand smash at the net. She turned to her coach Craig Tyzzer, who looked well satisfied at the performance, and acknowledged the crowd, which was littered with Australian accents.

The Ipswich player is the favourite to win the Championship, and she looks on track to achieve her first goal here: to improve on last year’s third-round appearance. If she becomes the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980, Barty will have accomplished a rare French Open-Wimbledon double.

Despite criticism of the outside court allocation by Wimbledon organisers, Barty relished in playing on the distant court two, which also afforded her an earlier start time and cooler conditions than if she was on centre court.