Ashleigh Barty performed like a true number one this Thursday in the Wimbledon semi-finals. The 25-year-old Australian did your part as the tournament's top seed and seed, win and get into the final. And it wasn't easy, because ahead was the 2018 champion and 2016 finalist, Angelique Kerber, a former leader of the ranking who had been playing wonderfully at 33, but could not stop Barty's varied and intelligent game, which has as its foundation a devilish and lethal backhand cut on grass (6-3 and 7-6 (3) in 1:26).
Barty will return to play the game for a title at Wimbledon ten years after winning the junior tournament at just 15 years old. It was in 2011, when she beat the Russian Irina Khromacheva. This time will face the Czech Karolina Pliskova on Saturday (15:00, #Vamos), who could with the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka. If she succeeds, she will be the fourth woman to have a junior-senior double at Wimbledon after Ann Jones, Martina Hingis and Amelie Mauresmo.
Ash, who is already assured to remain at the top of the WTA ranking, made a great match against Kerber with 38 winners and just 16 unforced errors. The first set clearly dominated it and in the second she came back from 0-3 to force the tiebreaker, a luck in which she swept the German with a 6-0 start. This year he already has 34 victories on the circuit, with three titles (Yarra Valley, Miami and Stuttgart), and she is the first number one to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals since Serena Williams in 2016.
Results and women's table calendar.