Ash Barty’s projected Australian Open ultimate opponent will enter the grand slam with no summer season win following one other flop in Adelaide.
Key factors:
- Aryna Sabalenka has suffered back-to-back losses within the area of per week
- Her rival Ash Barty is in profitable type
- Barty has declared she has had sufficient court docket time forward of the Open
World quantity two Aryna Sabalenka’s Open preparations lie in tatters after a 5-7, 6-1, 7-5 first-round loss to lowly-ranked Swede Rebecca Peterson on Tuesday.
Sabalenka’s defeat adopted a 7-6 (8-6), 6-1 loss to Slovenia’s world quantity 100 Kaja Juvan in her season opener within the South Australian capital final week.
Whereas Barty is an ideal seven from seven this 12 months after sweeping to the singles and doubles titles on the first of successive Adelaide Worldwide tournaments, Sabalenka hasn’t gained in additional than two months.
After failing to make the semi-finals of final 12 months’s season-ending championships in Mexico following losses to Maria Sakkari and Paula Badosa within the group phases, Sabalenka arrived in Australia needing treasured court docket time.
As an alternative, the 23-year-old will head to Melbourne Park severely underdone.
Barty has no such considerations.
The world primary opted out of this week’s Sydney Tennis Traditional, preferring to fly straight to Melbourne to recharge and fine-tune her recreation after bettering her file in opposition to top-10 rivals to 17-1 prior to now 12 months.
Barty beat 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, 2020 French Open champion Iga Swiatek and world quantity 14 Elena Rybakina in successive matches, all in straight units, earlier than teaming with fellow Australian Storm Sanders to additionally win the doubles in Adelaide.
AAP