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World No. 1 Ash Barty has advanced to the fourth round of The Australian Open after dispatching Italian No. 30 seed Camila Giorgi 6-2, 6-3 in 61 minutes on Rod Laver Arena on Friday night.
"It’s exciting. I felt like I was able to play a good level tonight and execute what we wanted to do. Very exciting being into the second week here in Melbourne again,” Barty said in her post-match press conference.
When the women’s draw was released last Friday, all eyes turned to a possible fourth-round showdown between Barty and defending champion Naomi Osaka. However, that showdown has not eventuated, with 20-year-old American Amanda Anisimova taking down the defending champion on Margaret Court Arena at the same time as Barty’s triumph on Rod Laver Arena.
“You have no idea what's going to happen. You just have to navigate your way through as best you can that given moment.
I have done a good job of that this week. Now it's exciting to get to play Amanda again. We've played before. It will be nice to play each other again in a big match,” Barty said.
“It shows how often the draw pans out like you guys think, hey? I would have loved to have had the opportunity to play Naomi. I love to test myself against the very best.
In the position we're in, Amanda has played a fantastic tournament. She deserves her spot in the round of 16. I think the match we will play will be exciting. It will be good for both of us to get out there and test ourselves against each other.”
Tonight’s win marked another match where Barty’s serve has not been broken. Dropping just two points on her first serve against Giorgi, that record has now been stretched to 58 games.
“Yeah, it's been fantastic. It's been really solid over the last couple of weeks. Particularly in Adelaide I felt like I found a really good rhythm with it. Here so far in my matches I've been able to squeeze out of a few really tough games, and obviously a big one tonight from Love-40 into the wind was a big game. I felt like once I was able to steady the ship with that one, got a little bit more confidence just to go up and hit my spots and still be aggressive on my service games when I had that ball in hand,” Barty said.
Barty will face Amanda Anisimova in the fourth round on Sunday.