Australian Open: New queen Ash Barty has all the right moves

Ash Barty tennis is intelligent tennis. A fascinating thing to watch.

Australia’s world No 1 Ash Barty stretches out in her straight-sets third-round win over Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina at MelbournePark on Friday. Picture: Mark Stewart

Paint 64 equal squares onto the court inside Rod Laver Arena and it will look like a chess board. This will suit Ash Barty just fine. Her two-handed crosscourt backhand already goes like a bishop from C1 to F6. The down-the-line forehand already ploughs ahead like a rook on the march from A1 to A8. Her drop shot already plonks over the net like a pawn inching one space ahead with bigger plans in mind. An actual chessboard will give her the chance to grin and say checkmate, mate, before match point. All of this will be fitting.

“Ash Barty tennis,” is what Barty calls her tennis, which is an eye-pleasing and highbrow brand of tennis that pieces together a rally as if every movement already has the next in mind. Watching her razor-sharp, concise and considered dismantling of Elena Ryba­kina on Friday, you can see and feel the intention behind every stroke, the big-picture ­approach to it all, the patience and aplomb. When the sliced backhand goes to E7, Rybakina will club her reply to D2, before Barty goes wide to H5, then pulls her back to B8, another point gained. Her head is down between points. Her brow is furrowed in deep concentration as if she’s pondering her turn. Her moves are intricate and well thought out. Ash Barty tennis is intelligent tennis. A fascinating thing to watch.

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“I’m still here, it’s all good,” she says after her 6-3 6-2 triumph. “I know if a player is going to beat me, they’re going to have to play a very high-quality match for a long period of time … across a three-set match. That’s the challenge I try to present. Today was the sharpest match I have played. Hopefully there’s still a little bit left in me.”

Told by a reporter expectations are rising, she asked: “Who’s expectations? Yours are? I don’t care about yours. It’s all good, I’m fine.”

Following Barty, the one-time major champion who keeps things close to her chest, onto the chess board is Serena Williams, the 23-time major champion who unknowingly has the sword of Damocles hovering above her. There can be no greater opposites in manner or method than the current world No 1 and the all-time world No 1. Williams has been gracious about Barty replacing her atop the rankings but there’s also the sense the 38-year-old American wants to pick up the 23-year-old Australian, ruffle her hair, pinch her cheeks and say: “Oh! Isn’t she cute!”

Williams has seen Barty in the underground carpark at Melbourne Park on Friday morning. Williams has been running with great vigour, knees high, her face strained with intensity. She’s seen Barty doing her own pre-match routine, kicking a Sherrin, grubber-kicking it along the ground. Williams has looked at her, and the ball, and the kicks, in bemusement. What the hell is that? When Williams begins against Qiang Wang, she’s all queens and rooks, trying to wipe out everything in her path, full steam ahead.

We’re still hoping for a Barty versus Williams semi-final. Please, gods, set up the pieces. They have not met since Barty’s rise to number one. Barty has just played her best match of the tournament but Williams is about to play her worst — and last. No one has seen her 6-4 6-7 (2-7) 7-5 loss coming after a rigorous off-season. Asked how often she’s done her boxing training, she’s replied: “Not often. It’s not great for my nails.”

Barty has locked up the top ranking by winning the WTA ­Finals. No Williams in that field. Told she’s been absent from the prestigious tournament-ending season since 2014, the conversation has gone like this.

Williams: “Really? 2014?”

Journalist: “Yes.”

Williams: “No. I don’t believe that. I need evidence.”

Journalist: “It’s right.”

Williams: “No.”

She never doubts herself, as we’re about to see, but that doesn’t mean she always gets the job done. Barty has finished her 11am match in time to make a pub lunch while the kitchen is still open. Williams can stay at the pub for the next week if she wants to. Barty has not made a peep, apart from telling the security guards on her way out the door: “Cheers, fellas!” Williams’s problem is that Wang is inspired up to her eyeballs: her coach, Australia’s Peter McNamara, has died last year from prostate cancer. They have been super close. She has been super devastated. Perhaps he’s out there somewhere.

Williams’s most enjoyable time in Melbourne? Making an Uber Eats commercial with Magda Szubanski. “So fun. Amazing. She’s hilarious,” Williams has said. And this: winning a punishing 24-shot rally that sends us into a third set, prompting the single greatest roar of the week from the stands. She pulverises balls to B3 to E6 to D2 to G7 and all parts between but Wang holds firm. She saves break and match points with thunderous first serves, blows her nose into a tissue, asks a ball girl: “Can I have a little water?” But then, but then, Wang wins, the sword falls. Barty has moved into round three while barely having a hair out of place, quiet as a church mouse. Williams is a sweat-soaked, huffing, puffing ball of emotion and noise. She is a force of nature but she’s gone.

Her least enjoyable time in Melbourne? This: losing despite throwing the kitchen sink at the Open, the sword falling, pushing herself so hard that she has nearly cried, dropping her head in defeat, another major gone, another tournament finished, another reason to believe Margaret Court’s record of 24 slams may never be broken.

The only world No 1 left in the tournament is the current one. Williams will be missed.