Ashleigh Barty wins 2021 Wimbledon title

Ashleigh Barty (Rob Keating, Wikimedia Commons)

Ashleigh Barty of Ipswich, Australia can add a Wimbledon singles title to her impressive resume. On Sunday at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, Barty defeated Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.

This is Barty’s second career grand slam singles title. She previously won the 2019 French Open where she beat Marketa Vondrousova in the final, another player from the Czech Republic, 6-1. 6-3.

Barty becomes the third Australian woman to win the women’s singles competition at Wimbledon. She follows Margaret Smith Court of Perth (1963, 1965, and 1970), and Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Griffith (1971, 1980).

Barty honoured Goolagong Cawley by wearing a scallop-hemmed outfit like Goolagong Cawley wore when she won Wimbledon half a century ago.  In the 1971 Wimbledon women’s final, Goolagong Cawley defeated Smith Court 6-4, 6-1.

In Saturday’s final, Barty dominated the early stages of the first set as she was up 4-0, and the early stages of the third set, as she was up 3-0. Pliskova struggled with her second serve, as she only won 44% of her service points when she did not get her first serve into play. That was compared to the 70% of second serve points for Barty.

The next significant tennis tournament for Barty will now be the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. It will now be interesting to see how Barty stacks up against the fresh Naomi Osaka of Japan, who withdrew during the French Open and missed Wimbledon. Osaka is the reigning United States Open champion and Australian Open champion. Head-to-head, Barty and Osaka have two wins each. Osaka won in the third round of the 2018 Australian Open, and the final in Beijing in 2019. Barty beat Osaka in qualifying in Mexico in 2014, and the semifinal of Nottingham in 2018.

It will be interesting to see if Osaka has the home court advantage at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Normally she would, but there will be no spectators at all during the Olympic Games because of coronavirus.

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