Ash Barty wins with an old mate in her corner

Ash Barty powered into the fourth round at the Australian Open after a surprise appearance at Melbourne Park by her childhood coach, Jim Joyce.

Ash Barty plays a forehand volley during her win over Camila Giorgia

Ash Barty went to the Boxing Day Test. Thought all her Christmas’s had come at once. She could watch Australia stick it to England in the Ashes and then wander down the road to have a hit on Rod Laver Arena.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable part of her preparation for the Australian Open. She left Melbourne for the Adelaide International, won it, returned to her home away from home at RLA. She’s hit so many balls in here in the past month, they should put her name on the door. If it’s all right with Rod.

Her opening three matches at the Open have all been back in her favourite room. When she faced Italian Camila Giorgi on Friday evening, well, put it this way: she didn’t need Google Maps to find the right corridor. The Wimbledon champion won 6-2, 6-3 to progress to a Sunday night blockbuster against the Darren Cahill-coached American Amanda Anisimova, who stunned defending champion Naomi Osaka 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10-5). Osaka’s demise means Barty will be backed off the map to win the Daphne Ackhurst Memorial Cup, but Cahill has Anisimova in dangerously fine fettle.

Barty nearly fainted when her first coach, Jim Joyce, turned up at Melbourne Park. He’s the bloke credited with creating the best slice backhand in the world.

“The big fella’s actually surprised me today,” Barty said of her childhood mentor. “Jim, my first coach, he flew down. I saw him about an hour before my match. I said mate, what are you doing here? I didn’t even know he was coming down. It was nice for him to be here. We did a lot of work on it (the slice) when I was young. He challenged me to be the most complete player I can be. We’re still working on it, Jimbo, but we’re getting there, mate. We’re getting there.”

Barty was at the Boxing Day Test, for the first time, because she’s a sports tragic. Cricket gets a big run on her TV. She was in the Australian dressing room at Lords in 2019 and struck up a bit of a friendship with Pat Cummins. She was back in the Australian shed at the MCG. The women’s Ashes will be getting a big hit this week. She follows golf and since becoming great mates with Steph Gilmore, she keeps an eye on the surfing. If she wasn’t in the Australian Open, she’d probably be watching it as eagerly as the rest of us.

“I’m a sports nut,” she says.

Giorgi hits the cover off the ball. She has a big enough game to ambush a top seed. But Barty had her covered. She told the kid doing the coin toss, “ANZ, thanks mate!” There’s no heads or tails on these coins. It’s ANZ or Margaret Molesworth, the winner of the inaugural Australasian Championships in 1922. ANZ it was and Barty was on her way.

She broke Giorgi’s opening service game. Stamped her authority. She won 12 of the first 16 points. Giorgi had to play out of her skin. Barty was in cruise control. She picked Giorgi apart like she was playing with needle and thread. Giorgi had one mode of operation. Swing big. Barty had options that could last her all night. All she really needed to do was keep the ball in play and wait for Giorgi to miss. There’s a difference between aggression and impatience, and initially Giorgi succumbed to the latter.

Barty led 4-1. Looked like a quick night at the office. Then Giorgi hit her straps. Stand-and-deliver groundstroke winners. The upside? Her resistance brought the crowd to life. Barty always makes for enjoyable viewing for the connoisseur, but the mood in RLA can dim when she’s rattling off easy wins in less than an hour. You want to witness a great player in a fight. Giorgi threatened to give her one when she held break points midway through the opening set. But every time the Italian lifted, so did Barty. By even more.

It was another sparkling performance from the Queenslander. One bloke in the crowd hollered, “Up the mighty Ipswich!” She finished the 61-minute match like her tournament was only just getting started.

“I thought tonight was really clean,” she said. “I thought I looked after my service games really well. I was able to keep momentum going and overall, it was a pretty good performance, I think.”

The dream Barty-Osaka match-up was ruled out when Anisimova stunned the Japanese two-time winner at Melbourne Park.

Anishmova ousted Osaka in a super tie-break on Margaret Court Arena.

Cahill has not scored a permanent gig working with Anisimova, but the trial period has — from the outside – been fruitful.