{"id":1311177,"date":"2019-06-08T22:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/its-a-barty-party-australian-wins-1st-major-at-french-open\/"},"modified":"2019-06-08T22:44:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T04:44:00","slug":"its-a-barty-party-australian-wins-1st-major-at-french-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/its-a-barty-party-australian-wins-1st-major-at-french-open\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a Barty party: Australian wins 1st major at French Open"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Australia’s Ashleigh Barty kisses the trophy as she celebrates winning her women’s final match of the French Open tennis tournament against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic in two sets 6-1, 6-3, at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Saturday, June 8, 2019. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

PARIS \u2014 Ash Barty knew she needed a break from tennis, from the pressure and expectations, from the week-in, week-out grind. So she stepped away in 2014 and wound up trying her hand at cricket, joining a professional team at home in Australia.<\/p>\n

After almost two years away, Barty was pulled back to the tour. Good choice. Now she\u2019s a Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n

Taking control right from the start of the French Open final and never really letting go, the No. 8-seeded Barty capped a quick-as-can-be rise in her return to the sport by beating unseeded 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-3 Saturday for her first major championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never closed any doors, saying, \u2018I\u2019m never playing tennis again.\u2019 For me, I needed time to step away, to live a normal life because this tennis life certainly isn\u2019t normal. I think I needed time to grow as a person, to mature,\u201d Barty said.<\/p>\n

And as for why she came back three years ago?<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed the competition. I missed the 1-on-1 battle, the ebbs and the flows, the emotions you get from winning and losing matches,\u201d said Barty, who will jump to a career-best No. 2 in the rankings Monday behind Naomi Osaka. \u201cThey are so unique and you can only get them when you\u2019re playing and when you put yourself out on the line and when you become vulnerable and try and do things that no one thinks of.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last part is an apt description of how she approaches each point, looking for just the right angle or speed, understanding where an opponent might be most vulnerable at any given moment. After using her slice backhand, topspin forehand and kick serve to do just that to Vondrousova, she called it a \u201ckind of \u2018Ash Barty brand\u2019 of tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vondrousova\u2019s take?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s mixing things up. And she has a huge serve,\u201d Vondrousova said. \u201cSo it\u2019s all, like, very tough to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barty raced to a 4-0 lead and then held on, showing that she learned her lesson after blowing a 5-0 edge in the opening set of her quarterfinal victory a day earlier against another unseeded teenager, 17-year-old American Amanda Anisimova.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn absolute roller-coaster,\u201d Barty called it.<\/p>\n

Her coach, Craig Tyzzer, said the two of them huddled with Ben Crowe, who helps Barty with the mental side of things, and they had a \u201creally good discussion about it\u201d to make sure she\u2019d avoid that sort of trouble in the final.<\/p>\n

Neither Barty, 23, nor Vondrousova had ever played in a Grand Slam final before. Neither had even been in a major semifinal until this week, either. But it was only Vondrousova who seemed jittery at the outset; she was playing at Court Philippe Chatrier for the first time.<\/p>\n

Barty wound up with a 27-10 edge in winners to become the first Australian to win the trophy at Roland Garros since Margaret Court in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played the perfect match today,\u201d Barty said.<\/p>\n

Pretty close to it, particularly at the beginning. By the end, Barty compiled a 27-10 edge in winners.<\/p>\n

It took all of 70 minutes to wrap things up.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe gave me a lesson today,\u201d said Vondrousova, who is ranked 38th. \u201cI didn\u2019t really feel good today, because she didn\u2019t let me play my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s final started about 1\u00bd hours later than scheduled because it followed the resumption of Dominic Thiem\u2019s 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 victory over Novak Djokovic in the men\u2019s semifinals, a match suspended Friday evening because of rain.<\/p>\n

Thiem will face 11-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal on Sunday in a rematch of last year\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

In a women\u2019s draw filled with surprises, Barty faced only one seeded player, No. 14 Madison Keys of the U.S., along with the women who eliminated Serena Williams and defending champion Simona Halep.<\/p>\n

After the U.S. Open five years ago, Barty left competitive tennis. She had been a successful junior, winning the 2011 Wimbledon girls\u2019 title, and played in three doubles finals by then, too.<\/p>\n

But she needed to get away and reconsider how to approach her job and all that came with it.<\/p>\n

Look where she is now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she didn\u2019t take a break, I\u2019m not sure she\u2019d still be playing. So I think the time away was the best thing for her,\u201d Tyzzer said. \u201cShe got her head around that this is what she missed and this is what she wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia’s Ashleigh Barty kisses the trophy as she celebrates winning her women’s final match of the French Open tennis tournament against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic in two sets 6-1, 6-3, at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Saturday, June 8, 2019. (AP Photo\/Christophe Ena)AP | AP PARIS \u2014 Ash Barty knew she needed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1311177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 19:21:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}