Ashleigh Barty survives scare in first round of Australian Open 2020

Published 01/20/2020, 5:13 AM EST

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We just witnessed an amazing match in the 2020 Australian Open between the 1st seeded Ashleigh Barty and Lesia Tsurenko. Both of the players get in this match with one win against each other in their previous two meetings. The last meeting held at Brisbane in 2018 where Lesia Tsurenko won.

Ashleigh Barty’s struggle in the 1st set

The first seeded Ashleigh Barty struggled throughout the first set with unforced errors and double faults. Lesia quickly gained a 2-0 in the first set. Ashleigh Barty showed her experience and got the game to 5-5 in the first set. Ashleigh Barty was the favorite going into the match having won the Adelaide open. Lesia played without any nerves going forward in the match and Ashleigh Barty wasn’t in the rhythm. Lesia went on to win the first set with 7-5.

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Ashleigh Barty’s comeback

Ashleigh looked pretty nervous going into the second set. Tsurenko dumped in two double faults and two bad forehand errors to drop serve and give Barty a 2-0 lead in the second. This helped to calm the top seed’s nerves. She comfortably got into a 3-1 lead. Once she got into her form, she quickly rose to 5-1 lead and went on to win the second set pretty easily without breaking any sweat with 6-1. With a second serve ace (that nearly hits Tsurenko?!) Barty won the set. Lesia’s level had dropped, but Ash’s had gone up, too. 91% first serve points won, 4 aces, just 5 UFEs

Ashleigh Barty Looked much calmer.

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Final set for Ashleigh Barty

Having won the second set easily, Barty went into the third set with full of confidence and showed why she is the first seed. she broke the first and third game then won the second and fourth game serving easily. Lesia merely won the fifth game and the match was on 4-1. She was unstoppable and went onto win the third and final set with 6-1.

Ashleigh Barty showed pure world-class form in defeating Tsurenko with 5-7,6-1,6-1. Barty proved why she is the first seeded player and won the match from one set down. After the first set, she made it looked very easy winning the match.

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Written by:

Abhay Aggarwal

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Abhay Aggarwal is sports analyst at EssentiallySports. Having joined ES in early 2020, he has over 300 NASCAR, Formula 1, and Tennis articles to his name. Abhay has been an avid motorsports fan for over a decade, and he even attended the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011.
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