Ash Barty has booked her place in her fourth consecutive Australian Open quarter-final with an outstanding 6-4, 6-3 victory over American Amanda Anisimova.
“I felt like tonight was different to the other couple matchups I had had. I felt there were new challenges and felt overall did a pretty good job of being able to control my own service games and put a lot of pressure on her service games, which in the end just kept building pressure over time,” Barty said in her post-match press conference.
Barty’s tremendous streak of 63 service games without being broken came to an end in the second set, but the world No. 1 broke straight back to eventually close out the match in straight sets.
“It didn’t bother me too much. Honestly, I'm not counting how many games I hold in a row or not. The fact I was able to reset, break straight back, was really important, just to be able to reset myself, go again and continue to do the right things,” Barty said.
“In that game Amanda saw a few second serves that she was able to punish, and she also had some really good returns off first serves. You tip your hat and you say, Too good, to your opponent when they come up with returns from the baseline, and move on pretty quickly and continue to try and do the right things.”
”Yeah, it's a part of my game that I continue to work on. I enjoy trying to be aggressive and assertive with my serve, and yeah, in pretty good stead.”
In the quarter-finals, Barty will face American No. 21 seed Jessica Pegula, who took down No. 5 seed Maria Sakkari in straight sets.
“Each and every player is different. Each and every player, there are some similarities, but certainly tactics and the way that I want to play is unique to each and every player. I try and adapt my game as best as I can to try and make my opponent uncomfortable, and that will be no different when Jess and I play in a couple days' time. My job is to try and make her uncomfortable, and hopefully I can execute that, have some fun with it, and make life difficult for her,” Barty stated.