Barty is Australian Open champion and breaks 44-year-old fast

The long wait of the Australian fans came to an end this Saturday (29). After 44 years, a home tennis player won the Australian Open again and made the crowd happy in Melbourne.

In great style, the world number 1, Ashleigh Barty, defeated the American Danielle Collins by 2 sets to 0 (6/3 and 7/6) and won her third Grand Slam title in her career, the first in her country. .

The last Australian champion of the tournament had been Chris O’Neil, in 1978. She was even in the stands to follow her compatriot’s feat. Since then, there have been five defeats for home tennis players, men and women, in singles decisions.

Barty, 25,​ had already reached the semi-finals once (2020) and twice in the quarter-finals (2019 and 2021) of the Australian Open. This year, she finally managed to take the tennis that accredited her as the best tennis player in the world from start to finish of the Slam, without losing a set on Melbourne’s hard court.

Until this Saturday’s game, there were only 21 games lost in six matches, an average of 3.5. Collins had almost tripled and was the only tennis player who managed to make Barty uncomfortable on the court at some point, but not long enough to have at least a set point against the champion.

The Australian already has 112 weeks at the top of the rankings, the eighth highest mark in history and the second among active athletes, behind Serena Williams (319). Versatile in her style of play, she now holds titles in 3 of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments, each on a different surface following her victories on clay at Roland Garros (2019) and on grass at Wimbledon (2020).

The decision began as the crowd at Rod Laver Arena had expected. In the sixth game of the first set, Collins had a chance to break Barty’s serve, but the Aussie kept her serve and broke the American’s. Then, he closed the partial with tranquility and asserted the 94% of points gained with the first serve (15 of 16).

Number 1’s superiority was interrupted at the beginning of the second set. Collins took advantage of a drop in Barty’s performance on the serve and the increase in mistakes made by her, managed to impose his aggressive play and opened two breaks ahead.

The Australian, however, recovered and returned the breaks. The partial went to the tiebreak, in which the home tennis player was superior again. Confident and with the enthusiastic support of the public, she gave no chance to bad luck, closed the game 7-2 and wrote her name again in the history of tennis.