Sport tip Hope for the hosts is the first 1/8-finalist in Melbourne
There is a hope for the local fans Ashleigh Barty who became the first Australian Open semi-finisher to make a debut in his career at this stage after a 7:5, 6:1 success over Maria Sakkari. The Australian placed under number 15 had to struggle in an extraordinary way to win the first set, and in the second he had a more convincing superiority to record a personal achievement - second consecutive ranking for the 4th round of a Grand Slam tournament, then US Open 2018. Barry continues his upward performance since New York, which includes the title of the WTA Tournament Wuhan at the end of last season, as well as two Hopman Cup victories in the early 2019s, followed by a Sydney final (loss by Petra Kvitova).
She pushed 13 aces without making a double mistake against Sakkari and also made 29 winners against 20 unforced errors while her opponent was more passive with her nine winning strikes and a total of 26 mistaken balls. The 22-year-old Australian made the first break for 3:1 in the first set, but Sakkari fought to wipe it out. There was the first set in favor of the host`s 5:4 host, but the Greek woman also coped with this danger in the game. The 15th place, however, made two games faster and took the lead in the score, and the second part of the game did not hide the same amount of intrigue.
Barty played diverse and often placed the ball in the middle of the opponent`s field, depriving Sakkari of the necessary angles to perform the strikes. That is where the great number of unforced errors of the greek woman lost five consecutive games, and the matches analyzed by sport tipsters for a total of 80 minutes.
Sakkari, who is the only top-ranked Greek woman in the world rankings, could not be the first Australian tennis player in the 4th round in Australia for 16 years. Happy and pleased Barty will be expecting champion Karolin Vojnjanski, the number three and last year`s champion of the eighth finals, as long as the Danish knight has hit number 30 on the Maria Sharapova chart.
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