Wimbledon 2021 | Ashleigh Barty beat Karolina Pliskova to win her second Grand Slam title

Ash Barty got off to a perfect start in the Wimbledon final, scoring 14 points, then bidding a comeback on Saturday with a 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 win over Karolina Pliskova. Grand Slam title.

Top seed Barty added this championship to the championship she won at the French Open in 2019.

She is the first Australian woman since Evonne Gulagong in 1980 to win a singles trophy at the All England Club. Barty says he is inspired by Goolagong and wore a dress at Wimbledon, a tribute to the outfit he won when he won. Tournament for the first time in 1971.

Barty, who is 25, was junior champion at Wimbledon a decade ago, then left the tennis tour for nearly two years due to burnout in 2014. He played professional cricket back home, then eventually decided to return to his other sport.

good call.

She was at her best at the start of each set against eighth seed Pliskova, the 29-year-old from the Czech Republic with a big serve.

Pliskova drops 0-2 in the major final; She was also the runner-up at the 2016 US Open.

Barty’s most significant blow came late in the second set. She worked her way up to a 6–5 lead but fired a relentlessly long forehand to break, then was unsteady in the ensuing tiebreaker, which she handed with a double-fault.

In the third, however, Barty took an early break, took a 3–0 lead and remained in the first Wimbledon women’s final to go in three sets since 2012. It was also the first between two contestants since 1977 who had never gone this far. All England Club.

Until this fortnight, neither Barty nor Pliskova could get past the fourth round of the grass-court major.

The match was played under cloudy skies and the center court’s retractable roof was open despite rain forecast for much of the afternoon. Due to the threat of rain, Barty and Pliskova shared a warm-up session under the roof on the No. 1 court earlier in the day, sometimes standing side by side while hitting shots.

They shared some smiles and chatter as they tossed the coin before the final, but once things got serious, Barty didn’t seem to mess up once.

From the very beginning, there was no sign of restlessness or uncertainty for Barty. His strokes were reassuring. His behavior too. During the match-opening run that saw her win 3-0, Love-30 and, at the end of Pliskova, 4-0 a few points after 11 minutes, Barty displayed every bit of her versatility and varied skill. .

She returned Pliskova’s quick serve – who produced a tournament-high 54 aces as she entered Saturday – without any trouble. She lobbed Pliskova, who is 8 inches taller than 5-foot-5 Barty at 6-foot-1, to win a point. He hit the winners with his heavy topspin forehand and set up the others with his shredded backhand. She threw an ace of her own, and actually ended up with 7-6 more than Pliskova.

By the end the main situation was probably this: Barty won 22 out of 31 points that lasted nine strokes or more.

As the balls passed over Pliskova, and the murmur in the stand at full capacity reached its peak – “What’s going on? Is she going to win a point?” – she looked little more in a way of reaction than a blank stare. Sometimes, she would fill up with her racket strings as if wanting to be somewhere else.

Pliskova’s coach, Sasha Bajin, who had previously worked with Naomi Osaka and previously Serena Williams’ hitting partner, sat in the guest box above a baseline, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

Even after Pliskova straightened things out, the rhythm of the first set was strange: A total of six games were won by Love.

Pliskova finally got the measure of her stroke in the second set, in which she twice came out after the break.

He could move Barty. Here’s the thing: She speaks bluntly that she should never let anything get her down, including the hip injury that ruled her out of the French Open last month and prevented her from her usual preparations for Wimbledon. gave.

And so, with her distinctive grit, Barty managed to get back into a stable version of herself down the stretch against Pliskova. When she got a second chance to serve it, Barty didn’t budge, even when she had to see a break point.

A missed backhand by Pliskova removed that threat, and Barty then delivered an ace of 108 mph. A final backhand miss from Pliskova ended the match, and Barty leaned over the baseline and covered her face with her arm.