{"id":6399,"date":"2013-05-30T06:50:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T22:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=6399"},"modified":"2013-05-30T06:50:40","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T22:50:40","slug":"barty-makes-grand-slam-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2013\/05\/30\/barty-makes-grand-slam-breakthrough","title":{"rendered":"Barty makes Grand Slam breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2013\/05\/30\/barty-makes-grand-slam-breakthrough\/attachment\/barty-roland-garros-460x306\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-6400\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/files\/2013\/05\/Barty-Roland-Garros-460x306-410x272.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"410\" height=\"272\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Exciting Australian teenager Ashleigh Barty won her first Grand Slam match with an upset victory over big-hitting Czech Lucie Hradecka at the French Open on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Barty, who only turned 17 last month, overcame world No.82 Hradecka 7-5 2-6 6-1 to set up a second round clash with Russian 12th seed Maria Kirilenko on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Barty, ranked 183rd, had yet to win a match in five major outings. But she put the experience gained to great use in Wednesday\u2019s match, which had been held over by a day due to a rain delay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was nice to get across the line. It was a bit of an up and down match but Lucie played a great second set,\u201d Barty said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m into the the second round and it\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barty said she felt relief more than anything after her breakthrough win but had to be told she was facing Kirilenko in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that who I play? I haven\u2019t even looked at the draw,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously she likes playing on the clay but I haven\u2019t even thought about it. Let\u2019s be honest, I\u2019ve never made it to a second round before so I wasn\u2019t sure if it was worth (checking the draw).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It had been a case of missed opportunities in the first set before Barty eventually clinched it.<\/p>\n<p>Both players traded breaks for most of the set and the Australian wasted a handful of game point opportunities to build a two-game buffer.<\/p>\n<p>However, she kept focused and took the advantage when she converted her fifth set point on Hradecka\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n<p>Hradecka lifted her game in the second but the third set was all Barty.<\/p>\n<p>She nullified the Czech\u2019s power with smart play and she raced to the biggest victory of her career, pumping her first in delight.<\/p>\n<p>Barty came into the event feeling more comfortable in her surroundings and hopeful of making an impact with the benefit of a full Grand Slam cycle under her belt.<\/p>\n<p>She also took plenty of confidence from an excellent Fed Cup victory over world No.58 Stefanie Voegele on clay in Switzerland last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exciting Australian teenager Ashleigh Barty won her first Grand Slam match with an upset victory over big-hitting Czech Lucie Hradecka at the French Open on Wednesday. Barty, who only turned 17 last month, overcame world No.82 Hradecka 7-5 2-6 6-1 to set up a second round clash with Russian 12th seed Maria Kirilenko on Thursday. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399","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=6399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}