Sofia Kenin produced a stunning match to usurp Ash Barty’s dreams of winning her home Grand Slam, beating the Aussie 7-6, 7-5 to make it to the 2020 Australian Open final.
The American, who had never reached the quarterfinal of any Grand Slam tournament before this, had also gone into the match without a win against Barty in four previous meetings. What Kenin did have is the confidence from a sterling previous season in which she had won her maiden WTA title at Hobart and followed it up with two more at Mallorca on grass and Guangzhou.
Earlier, she had sent the teenage sensation Cori Gauff out of the competition after coming back from the loss of the first set and then defeated Ons Jabeur in the quarterfinal to set up this match against Barty.
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Stunningly, the first set had no breaks of serve. That’s something of a rarity in women’s tennis but more so given it is the top seed playing.
Both players had their moments where they would have thought they had their chances to get past their opponents but once Barty missed out on challenging a long shot from Kenin in the 11th game, the set headed into a tie-breaker.
It turned out to a riproaring tie-breaker where Barty took an early 4-2 lead and while Kenin levelled it soon, the Aussie had a couple of set-points at 6-4. Kenin saved the first on her own serve before making it 6-6 by getting the mini-break back. Off Barty’s next serve, Kenin kept her nerve to win the point before serving out for the set on her first set-point to go one up.
Strap in for a cracking semi!#AO2020 | #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/tzHJQ359wK
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 30, 2020
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The second set looked to be going more to script as Barty got a break of serve in the third game of the set. She kept holding on to her own service game, and the confidence seemed to be back in her stride as she made it 5-4 where Barty served to take it to the third set.
And when she made it 40-15 on her own serve to garner two match-points, Barty would have probably been thinking of her third set strategy already. Instead, a solid winner for Kenin and then an unforced error from Barty made it deuce before the American got a break-point.
Barty saved that one only to miss out on a simple drive volley which brought Kenin back into the set with a break-back. Kenin held on to go 6-5 up and serving to stay in the match, Barty’s nerves looked like they were jangling as she served her first double-fault and committed a forehand error. Two match-points followed and Kenin converted the second of those to win a thrilling semifinal.
She will now take on the winner of the Muguruza-Halep match.
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