Barty beats Pliskova at Wimbledon for 2nd Grand Slam title

29

Barty beats Pliskova at Wimbledon for 2nd Grand Slam title

Barty beats Pliskova at Wimbledon for 2nd Grand Slam title

Ash Barty got off to a perfect start in the Wimbledon final by collecting the first 14 points, then needed to hold off a comeback bid before beating Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 on Saturday for her second Grand Slam title.

The top-seeded Barty adds this championship to the one she won at the French Open in 2019.

She is the first Australian woman to win the singles trophy at the All England Club since Evonne Goolagong in 1980.

Barty says she has been inspired by Goolagong and wore an outfit at Wimbledon that was a tribute to the dress Goolagong played in when she won the tournament for the first time in 1971.

Barty, who is 25, was the junior champion at Wimbledon a decade ago, then left the tennis tour for nearly two years in 2014 because of burnout. She played professional cricket back home, then eventually decided to return to her other sport.

Good call.

She was at her best at the beginning of each set against the eighth-seeded Pliskova, a 29-year-old from the Czech Republic with a big serve.

Pliskova dropped to 0-2 in major finals; she was the runner-up at the 2016 U.S. Open, too.

Barty’s most significant wobble came late in the second set. She served for the victory ahead 6-5 but sailed consecutive forehands long to get broken, then was shaky in the ensuing tiebreaker, which she ceded with a double-fault.

In the third, though, Barty went up an early break, led 3-0 and stayed the course in the first Wimbledon women’s final to go three sets since 2012. It also was the first since 1977 between two participants who never had been that far at the All England Club.

Neither Barty nor Pliskova made it past the fourth round at the grass-court major until this fortnight.

The series is now being pushed back by four days despite the SLC keeping two groups of players in separate bio-bubbles.

“Apart from the UK-returned batch, we have created two more bio-bubbles in Colombo. In one bubble there are 13 players and in another there are 26. So, 39 players are available to pick a squad from. But BCCI would like to play the first team for obvious reasons,” the SLC source said.

Since the Sri Lanka white-ball team doesn’t have any commitments after this, the rescheduling wasn’t a big problem.

With all the games at the Premadasa Stadium, the dates can be kept flexible as no travelling is involved.

The Indian team is staying at its preferred location for the last three decades—Taj Samudra.

While Niroshan’s conformation was given on Friday, Sri Lanka’s batting coach Flower tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, 48 hours after the squad’s arrival from England.

All the other players who are quarantining have also been tested.

Before testing negative, Sri Lanka’s squad had faced an anxious wait for the results of their RT-PCR tests on returning home, following a Covid-19 outbreak in the England squad after the final match of their tour in Bristol on Sunday.

Barty beats Pliskova at Wimbledon for 2nd Grand Slam title

The Lankans have been in a bit of turmoil even otherwise with a dispute over contracts and an ongoing inquiry into bio-bubble breach by three players during the England tour adding to their woes.

Do Follow us on :- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here