London, (SATSports) – Ashleigh Barty stormed into her first Wimbledon semi finalswith a brilliant 6-3, 7-6 (3) victory over 2018 champion, Angelique Kerber.
The world number 1 had a shaky start on her serve, but quickly regathered herself to save a break point and serve out the first game followed with a break of the Kerber serve to go up 2-0 as the former champion dealt with nerves of her own.
Despite her opponent gaining momentum from the fourth game, the Australian was tactically on point throughout the set, with great shot variations to disrupt Angelique’s rhythm while also making use of the one-two punch on serve to make the points short. At big points, like a break point while serving for the set, the world’s best player produced venomous forehands to savethe point and close out the first set.
The Center Court crowd that loves it’s former champions, rallied behind Kerber in the second set, who responded by winning long baseline exchanges and breaking serve to go 2-0 in the second, electrifying the crowd as Barty’s level seemed to be sinking slowly.
An error filled service game by the 25th seed resulted in her losing it to love, sending set two into a tie breaker two games later. As the player who has spent the most hours on court at the championship, the long matches could have started kicking seen by a miserable start to the breaker, losing six straight points to hand Barty 6 match points before the spirit of a champion surfaced, fighting to stay alive by winning 3 exquisitely played points before firing one more unforced error to send the Queensland born Australian into her first Wimbledon final.
A historic day for Australia, as Barty becomes the first Australian woman in 41 years to reach the Wimbledon singles final, where she will face Karolina Pliskova, who saw off second seed Aryana Sabalenka 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 to reach her second grand slam final after playing in the 2016 US Open final.
