Melbourne, Australia — No.1 seed Ashleigh Barty became the first home player to reach the Australian Open women’s final in 42 years with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over unseeded Madison Keys in just 62 minutes.
Barty is the first Australian woman to reach the singles final of her home Grand Slam tournament since Wendy Turnbull, who was a runner-up to Hana Mandlikova in 1980. No Australian has won the title since Chris O’Neil in 1978.
Ash hit 20 winners to only eight for Keys. She converted four of her six break-point opportunities, and saved the only two break points she faced on her serve. In six matches so far she hasn’t dropped one service game.
Barty has won major titles on grass at Wimbledon and on clay at the French Open, and she is one win away from adding another on a hard surface.
“It’s unreal. Honestly, it’s just incredible,” Barty said in her on-court TV interview. “I love coming out here and playing in Australia.
“As an Aussie, we’re exceptionally spoiled we get to play in our own back yard. Now we have a chance to play for a title. It’s unreal.”
This is Keys first time playing in the Australian Open semifinals since 2015, when she lost to eventual champion Serena Williams. That was the last year a top-seeded player won the women’s title at Melbourne Park.
The stadium was limited to two-thirds capacity, with the state government allowing an increase from the previous 50% restriction on ticketed courts late this week as part of easing the rules in place for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keys was on a career-best 10-match winning streak ahead of the semifinals, including a run to the title in a tune-up tournament in Adelaide – her first WTA title since 2019 – and a first-round win over 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin. Her full tally of 11 match wins this month already equals her total for 2021, when she dropped into the 50s in the rankings. She’s expected to return to the top 30 next week.
Barty will next play Saturday (late Friday night PT) against American Danielle Collins, who dominated 2020 French Open champion Iga Switek, 6-4, 6-1, in the second semifinal to reach the first Grand Slam final of her career.
“I would have only been 11 or 12 years old and came down for a training camp in the second week of the Australian Open,” Barty told reporters after the match, recalling her earliest visits to Melbourne Park. “To see how professional it was and to see everyone going about their business was really eye-opening. My first taste of it was in the juniors, and I loved it. I think being able to get a taste of that kind of lit the flame. You wonder what you can achieve. You wonder what you can do. Over the last three or four years, I’ve loved playing here in Australia. I’ve had my best results here over the last little period. It’s really exciting now that we get to play for a title on a Saturday at your home slam.”
Immediately after Barty’s victory, the American Danielle Collins and the Polish player Iga Świątek took over the Rod Laver Arena for a second semifinal showdown that proved to be just as exciting, with Collins taking the match in straight sets and now moving on to face Ash in Saturday’s final. It marks the first Grand Slam final for Collins, the current world number 30—a feat made all the sweeter given the 28-year-old Floridian’s long battle with endometriosis, for which she underwent emergency surgery last April.
That is the fewest games lost en route to a Grand Slam title match since Serena Williams conceded 16 on the way to the 2013 US Open final and the joint-fourth lowest number this century (behind Serena’s 19 at the 2012 US Open and Venus Williams’ 20 at Wimbledon 2009 and the same as Serena’s 21 at Roland Garros 2013).
“It’s tough,” she said afterwards. “It sucks. She’s just playing incredibly well. I mean, you have a game plan in your head, but she’s just executing everything so well. She’s serving incredibly well, so you don’t get any free points on that. Her slice is coming in so much lower and deeper than it was in the past, so it’s hard to do anything on that. Then you try to play to her forehand and she can open you up there. I think she’s playing some really, really good tennis, but she’s also, it just seems so locked in and focused. I have played her a handful of times, and this is easily the best I think she’s ever been playing.” Madison Keys said after the match.
By the numbers: It was a fifth near-flawless performance from Barty at Melbourne Park this fortnight. Every facet of her game was on point. She fired off the first 10 points on her serve, landed 61% of her first serves and won 86% of those points. She saved both break points against her, one with an ace and another with an overhead. She racked up 20 winners to 13 unforced errors.
