No spotlight, just sunlight: Ash Barty's winning style
Ash Barty has made her way into the Australian Open further than ever before as she aims to become the first hometown hero since Lleyton Hewitt to qualify for the finals.
Barty was defeated in the quarter-finals last year by Petra Kvitova but got her revenge against the seventh-seeded Czech on Tuesday, winning 7-6 (8-6) 6-2 to keep the dream alive of claiming a second grand slam singles title.
The French Open champion will go head-to-head with American Sofia Kenin in her semi-final on Thursday.
Kenin’s quarter final victory over Ons Jabeur was the first match on Rod Laver Arena when the game started at 11 am before Barty vs Kvitova followed that clash at lunchtime.
When the schedule was announced, there was an outcry from people questioning why the top seed wasn’t given the blockbuster prime time slot at night on centre court.
On The Tennis Podcast, BBC commentator David Law said: “We all thought she (Barty) should be scheduled in the night match because there’d be so many more eyeballs on it.
“A lot of people are at work (during the day), a lot of kids are at school.”
When asked by Law in her post-match press conference whether she herself had requested to play during the day rather than at night, Barty gave a cryptic response where she refrained from confirming if that was the case, but did mention how much she loves playing under the sun.
“I think everyone has preferences of when they like to play but for me I love playing in the sun, I love playing in the daytime,” she said.
“We play more matches in the daytime than we do at night, but I think with the other quarter-final being played in the morning, it was fine as well. I’m happy to play in the sun anytime.”
Law then later said: “I asked if she’d requested to play in the daytime because of the conditions being different to what she played Kvitova in last year when they played in the night session.
“She didn’t answer explicitly.
“It’s quite clear she and the team have made a request to play in the afternoon.
“She is the world No.1, she is the big star in Australia and maybe that would have carried some weight.”