{"id":3542,"date":"2011-12-13T18:24:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T10:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=3542"},"modified":"2011-12-13T18:24:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T10:24:54","slug":"15yr-old-ash-barty-bound-for-2012-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2011\/12\/13\/15yr-old-ash-barty-bound-for-2012-australian-open","title":{"rendered":"15yr old Ash Barty Bound for 2012 Australian Open!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashleigh Barty has capped a magnificent week at the 2012 Australian Open Wildcard Play-off with a straight-sets defeat of second seed Olivia Rogowska, ensuring her entry into the main draw of a Grand Slam event for the first time in her career.<\/p>\n

The 7-6(6) 6-2 win meant that Barty \u2013 a wildcard into the event \u2013 has gone undefeated through the play-off without the loss of a set, an extraordinary feat given the 15-year-old said she simply hoped to win a set coming into the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t describe how I\u2019m feeling right now,\u201d Barty told the large media contingent on Court 6 after her victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pleased with what I\u2019ve done and I\u2019ve played some really good tennis this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

> Australian Open 2012 Play-off photos<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet of the two players it was Rogowska who displayed the most impressive tennis in the early stages of the final, racing to a 3-0 lead on the strength of some extremely consistent and accurate play from the back of the court.<\/p>\n

The first sign of fragility came in the fourth game, when Barty scrambled to retrieve a Rogowska shot that had hit the tape and dropped short, setting up the easiest of passing shots for Rogowska. The Victorian fluffed the shot, and Barty would eventually hold to get on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

Rogowska shrugged off that minor disappointment and maintained her service break advantage to move ahead 5-2, her backhand in particular firing strongly. But Barty increasingly settled into the match, drawing on the confidence she had accrued thanks to an undefeated run through the Optus 18s Australian Championships draw and in her first four matches of the wildcard play-off.<\/p>\n

> Watch Australian Open 2012 Play-off match highlights<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queenslander conjured some big forehands and some lovely touch shots as she won three-straight games to level the set at 5-5, benefiting also from Rogowska\u2019s mounting error tally.<\/p>\n

With scores deadlocked the standard of play lifted as both Barty and Rogowska fought for the ascendancy, and the set appropriately progressed to a tiebreak. It was a high-quality yet seesawing affair \u2013 Barty struck a vicious slice that forced the error from Rogowska\u2019s racquet, only for the No.2 seed to respond with an ace to level at four points all.<\/p>\n

Barty reached set point and tried to take it with a flourish, but narrowly missed her forehand down the line. She procured a second opportunity thanks to another wickedly sliced backhand that Rogowska couldn\u2019t control, pocketing the opening set when her opponent sent a forehand beyond the baseline.<\/p>\n

When asked about her slow start to the set after the match, Barty did not think it could be considered as such.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t played Liv before so it\u2019s hard to get used to her ball, but she came out really well and she was playing some really good tennis. I think I was just able to keep a little more solid towards the end of that first set and at the start of the second,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

> Australian Open 2012 Play-off videos<\/a><\/p>\n

The second set progressed routinely on serve, with Barty \u2013 naturally the more powerful of the pair \u2013 muscling an off-forehand winner and pounding down the first serves on her way to a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n

In the very next game, Barty\u2019s big hitting from the baseline seemed to be wearing Rogowska down, with the Victorian committing two errors off powerfully struck Barty forehands. The Queenslander\u2019s scrambling ability also shook Rogowska, forcing her to go for too much on a swinging volley that didn\u2019t find the mark.<\/p>\n

Barty snared the first break of the set in that game to move ahead 4-2 and, all of a sudden, Rogowska\u2019s resistance crumbled. The evenly contested games and absorbing rallies from earlier in the match disappeared, as Barty grew in confidence and leaned into her shots while Rogowska increasingly struggled to find the court.<\/p>\n

With Rogowska serving to stay in the match at 2-5, she showed she had some fight left in her, with smash and service winners helping her to 30-30. But Barty\u2019s form was irresistible \u2013 a fabulous all-court point ensued at deuce that Barty eventually took with a forehand passing shot winner \u2013 and she wrapped up the win when Rogowska committed a final error.<\/p>\n

The young Queenslander was presented with a large bunch of flowers and her Australian Open accreditation pass, which she jokingly said she hoped not to lose between now and January. The humour kept coming as she was quizzed about how she would approach her first ever hit-out in a major tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll probably go out there and play some horrendous tennis and be really nervous, but I\u2019ll just go out there and have some fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ll probably just keep to myself in the locker room, just stay in the corner and hide from everyone, but we\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wildcard play-off triumph caps a magnificent year for Barty. She won the girls\u2019 junior event at Wimbledon and rose to an ITF junior ranking of world No.3 in August, before her outstanding success at senior level this week in Australia. She said that even just a few months since her Wimbledon triumph, everything about her game had improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy serve\u2019s a little bit bigger, my game\u2019s a little bit bigger, [and] I\u2019m moving a little bit better, so everything\u2019s coming together very nicely,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashleigh Barty has capped a magnificent week at the 2012 Australian Open Wildcard Play-off with a straight-sets defeat of second seed Olivia Rogowska, ensuring her entry into the main draw of a Grand Slam event for the first time in her career. The 7-6(6) 6-2 win meant that Barty \u2013 a wildcard into the event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":3543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}