Barty d. Sharapova: Why It Matters

This image is a derivative of Sydney International Tennis WTA Premier by Rob Keating (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Athletes remember the moments which meant the most to them in their careers.

Ash Barty reached the pinnacle of her profession earlier in 2019 when she won the French Open at Roland Garros. She achieved an important milestone on the road to that mountaintop experience when she won the Miami Opena few months earlier. Those were the championship celebrations Barty will savour when 2019 ends and gives way to the new decade, but she also knows that she wouldn't have reached the summit without an earlier victory at the start of 2019.

Go back to January, at Melbourne Park. Barty faced a familiar presence in the tennis world in the fourth round of the Australian Open. This opponent had won the Australian Open. She had completed the career Grand Slam. Beating this player at a major - even in a comparatively diminished state - is not easy.

This player doesn't make it easy to defeat her... unless the opponent is Serena Williams.

We are talking, of course, about Maria Sharapova.

Tennis players simply can't cut corners against Sharapova. Some players are more skilled than the Russian, and some players work just as hard as she does, but no one is more determined or resolute on the court.

Sharapova might not PLAY consistently - her shots can - and do - misfire at times, but she COMPETES consistently.

She might lack accuracy on given days, but she never lacks intensity and that rare ability to make the opponent feel her presence across the net.

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Few tennis players convey that, but the ones who do are often champions. They will win most matches because they are the more talented player on the court, but they will win several important matches - many dozens if their career is long enough - primarily because of their aura when the moment matters.

The other player stops and realizes at some point-- it could be at the start, or in the middle, or near the finish line - how tough it will be to put together a full match against an elite player who concedes no ground: 

"Damn, I have to go through Maria Sharapova to win this match."

Five minutes later, Sharapova gets the decisive break, or turns the momentum, or closes the sale.

Ask Australia's Samantha Stosur at the 2014 French Open how Sharapova turned around a match Stosur seemed likely to win. (Ask her, 2-15 against Maria, how hard it was to beat Sharapova under any circumstance.) 

Ask various other WTA pros how difficult it is to beat Sharapova even when she isn't on top of her game. The process of breaking down Sharapova might not be too complicated on the scoreboard, but it still requires total involvement and concentration. Any attempt to coast through patches of play will get punished.

Skilled players have to be resilient and ready to accept imperfections in order to beat even a lesser-grade version of Sharapova.

When Ash Barty did this in Melbourne, the global tennis community and tennis fans in Australia began to realize that a new Barty was rising from the ashes, a player who could rise to the top of the women's game.

Barty was punched in the mouth by Sharapova in the first set of that fourth-round match. Every great player has to learn how to take a punch, though, and Barty roared through the second set and then gained the upper hand in the third. The final test? Could she serve under enormous pressure - the pressure applied by Sharapova, yes, but also the pressure of performing in a home-nation major tournament, plus the pressure of realizing how beneficial a win would be for Barty's own career?

Barty stood on the precipice but didn't fall. She finished the job to beat Sharapova, 6-4 in the third. She reached her first major quarterfinal.

She hasn't looked back since.

That moment in Melbourne was a huge turning point. If that win over Sharapova had not occurred, I doubt Barty would have risen up the ranks as quickly as she has in 2019. Maybe she would have made the same journey, but this author finds that argument unpersuasive. Ash Barty needed that experience of handling Sharapova and other forms of pressure at her home-nation major tournament. She needed that high-stress occasion to show what she was truly capable of. 

The cauldron of emotions and competing tensions has to be mastered before a tennis player can say to herself, "Yes, I KNOW I can do this."

Players might THINK they can achieve at a certain level, but only after walking through the fire do they know - and can trust - themselves in a deeper way

Maria Sharapova was the gateway for Ash Barty in 2019. The opponent who enabled Ash to make that crucial passage from dreamer to winner; from "maybe" to "definitely."

Therefore, after a tough Wimbledon loss to Alison Riske, and another loss in Canada to Sofia Kenin, Barty - who doesn't need to win the Cincinnati WTA title to validate anything about her year - really needed a win over Sharapova.

Barty didn't need this win because Cincinnati is important. (Cincy really doesn't matter much. The US Open is the prize.)

Barty didn't need this win in relationship to her battle with Naomi Osaka for World No #1. Sure, it's not irrelevant right now, but with Osaka defending 2,000 points in New York, Barty can still pass Osaka there. The need to do so in Ohio isn't especially paramount.

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Barty needed this win over Sharapova because it was a book-end match. It was a match in which Barty could look at Sharapova across the net and then look at herself in the mirror. 

She could ask herself, "Ash, are you the same player you were in January, when you toughed it out against Maria and realized you could be great? On the other side of the French Open and Miami, on the other side of your rise to No. 1, can you still do this? Can you remind yourself and everyone else that you still possess the toughness of the elite player you have in fact become?"

The answer would depend on this match in Cincinnati.

Barty provided the right response.

She went up 1-0 and then 15-30 on Sharapova's serve. Maybe Sharapova would give her an easy time of it... 

Nope.

Sharapova rattled off three straight games and let Barty know that - once again - if she was going to win, she would have to earn every point.

Barty was once again punched in the mouth. As in Australia, she calmly absorbed that punch and responded by playing her best tennis.

Barty broke right back after trailing 3-1. She won five of the last six games to take the second set. Then, up *2-0, she was roped into a very long service game. Sharapova made what was realistically her final push to get back in the match. 

After a seemingly endless parade of deuces, Barty held.

She denied Sharapova re-entry into the Lindner Family Tennis Center. She gained control. She maintained control. She put her foot down and thumped Sharapova in that second set, 6-1.

Yep. She still has it!

The player who lost at Wimbledon and then very early in Canada can show her fighting qualities in a high-pressure situation.

She doesn't have to win Cincinnati. Ash Barty knows the essential characteristics of a champion will travel with her to New York.

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