Australia’s local hope Ash Barty is through to the third round of women’s singles in blistering time on the inaugural First Nations Day at the Australian Open.
After taking only 54 minutes to defeat Ukrainian qualifier Lesia Tsurenko 6-0, 6-1 in the first round, Barty upped her game to defeat Italian qualifier Lucia Bronzetti 6-1, 6-1 in the second match on Rod Laver Arena.
That takes Barty’s tally to a total of 106 minutes on court so far for the loss of only 3 games in her first two rounds.
Barty broke out of the gates quickly and raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set. Troubling Bronzetti with her inside out down the line backhand slice as well as stubborn return game.
The Italian held when serving at 0-5 to get herself on the board, but it didn’t trouble Australia’s golden girl as she served out the set 6-1 in front of the ever-adoring Melbourne crowd.
The second set started a little differently with both women holding serve initially, however that would be the last time Bronzetti would do so, with Barty breaking twice more to close out the match 6-1, 6-1.
In the end, the Australian’s consistent pressure and thunderous serve proved too strong for the Italian as Barty recorded 8 aces and won 86% of first serve points.
After not being broken today, Barty is now on a 48 game and 5 match streak without having her serve broken according to WTA Insider.
Additionally, the Australian forced the Italian into 18 errors out on court, whereas Bronzetti was barely able to trouble Barty who only had 3 forced errors for the match.
Speaking after the match, Barty expressed her satisfaction with the outcome of today’s match.
“I felt good. I felt like I wanted to try to use my experience a little bit today, get off to a quick start. I felt like I was able to do that. I served well. I was able to find plenty of forehands and control the match quite well, so pleased with that one.”
As reward for her dominance, Barty will face another Italian and 30th seed Camila Giorgi.
Barty leads her head-to-head match-up with Giorgi 3-0 with the pairs last meeting in the second round of the 2018 Australian Open which Barty won 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.
As to how Barty views her upcoming opponent the Queenslander said “she has the ability to hold baseline, to control the center of the court, be super, super aggressive off her serve and first shot, particularly off her return. It's going to be a match where I'm going to have to serve well, bring in variety, make sure I can cover the court, neutralize the best that I can. She has the ability to hit you off the court without realizing it's happening.”
“I think it's going to be another match with some freshchallenges. But having played her before, she kind of knows my game, I kind of know hers. It's about going out there and trying to do it as good as I can.”