There was a time when Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko got the better of Ashleigh Barty, but the Australian on Monday easily won her opening round of the Australian Open 6-0 6-1 | mickgleeson
Ashleigh Barty. World No.1. Reigning Wimbledon winner. Two-time grand slam champion. And, more importantly, fully vaccinated. Now perhaps even more importantly than that, she is also a first round Australian Open winner.
Not only that she won that first round in straight sets losing just one game and in less than an hour. Barty, the humble self-effacing champion has long been a counterpoint to her male number one counterpart. In contrast to Novak Djokovic, the most divisive thing about Barty is she barracks for Richmond. Even then, she is a beer-in-a-plastic-cup-in-the-stands type of likeable fan that even Tiger haters would find it hard to begrudge her. For the tournament favourite and the loved local, she was remarkably able to avoid the pre-Open attention because of the Djokovic imbroglio . On opening night the focus turned as it ought, to the tennis not the law court and to the number one who is here and not the one who is on a plane home. Barty came up against Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko, a former world No.23 who beat her back in 2018. Sure that was when Tsurenko was at her peak and Barty was yet to make her formidable rise. Tsurenko up-ended Barty at her home tournament at the Brisbane International that year and went on later to make the quarter-finals of the US Open. If Monday night’s game had a familiar feel about it, there was good reason. Two years ago here Barty also played Tsurenko in the opening round. That was where the similarity ended, for on that occasion Barty dropped the opening set but avoided the disappointment of Brisbane in 2018. Barty was world No.1 then but at 23 was still adjusting to life at the top. Now at 25 she is accustomed to it and is delivering the consistency of performance of the world’s best player. At 32, Tsurenko might have wondered who she offended to twice cop the local favourite in the opening round.This time Barty knew to be on her game from the opening and that, despite her opponent needing a qualifier to be here, history warned her there was no player to take lightly in this tournament. Barty closed her down in her first two service games to skip out to an early lead and take the opening set comfortably. She was in full control while Tsurenko found it difficult to make any inroads on the Australian’s game. Barty, despite being considerably shorter than most of her opponents, was punishing on serve, giving Tsurenko no look in. Barty shut down the second set in the same clinically efficient way she began the first, winning the match 6-0 6-1. She now advances a step closer to the tantalising fourth round match-up with last year’s winner Naomi Osaka. “It’s felt like an eternity since I have been back on this court. I felt like it was [a] nice and clean [performance],” Barty said. “It’s nice to be back on home soil and playing as well as I did tonight. It was a fun out there.”
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