Ash Barty has to trust her moment at Wimbledon will come

This image is a derivative of Ash Barty (Trending Twitter Topics from 20.01.2019) by Trending Topics 2019 (CC BY 2.0)

Here is an interesting fact: The last five No. 1 seeds at women's major tournaments have not reached the Quarter Finals of that tournament. 

Ash Barty joins Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep in that regard. Yet, Barty - like Osaka and Halep - is still a major champion.

On Monday at the All England Club, it was not fun to be Ash Barty for the first time in a long time. She won every match she played at the French Open. She won every match in Birmingham - and claimed the World No. 1 ranking - which she will keep through Wimbledon and into the hardcourt season. She won every match in Week 1 of Wimbledon.

Then, however, the music stopped. 

Alison Riske, who is 14-1 on grass in 2019, toppled Barty after losing the first set. Riske made her first major QF, something Barty had done earlier this year in Melbourne at the Australian Open. Riske came from behind to win, which Barty did against Amanda Anisimova in the Semi Final of Roland Garros. Riske is playing the best tennis of her life.

Ash Barty can really relate to the woman who defeated her. Australians, though naturally sad about this upset, can identify with Riske and how she approaches the sport.

If Ash was going to lose to someone, Riske - a well-liked player on tour - represents a worthy conqueror.

Riske's postmatch press conference on Monday at Wimbledon included these wise words cut from the old-school cloth of the Australian tennis ethos:

"I think ultimately it just came down to being ready for a battle," Riske said. 

"Like I said multiple times already, nothing is ever going to be perfect out there. If it is, it's very rare. I just think I was ready for whatever was going to come my way. I knew exactly what I was trying to do out there, what I was trying to execute. I knew that if I did them better than 50%, I was probably going to come out on top."

"Yes, there are a lot of times where you lose tough matches, but you know at the same time, there's going to be a chance next week is going to be better. I feel like that hope and that possibility is what keeps me going. I do love to compete. I love everything about what I do."

With that kind of positive attitude, it's no wonder that Riske has won four 3-set matches at Wimbledon 2019, three of them when coming from behind, two of them after trailing by three games in the final set (4-1 to Donna Vekic in round one, 3-0 to Belinda Bencic in round three).

Australia certainly wished Ash Barty could have found solutions in the third set, but it takes some of the sting out of losing, when the victor carries herself so well.

To add to the portrait of the woman who knocked out Barty at Wimbledon, here is Tennis With An Accent contributor Mert Ertunga, who asked Riske one of the questions at her presser on Monday:

"There are players for whom I harbour a special admiration on both the WTA and ATP Tours. These are players who do not necessarily have great technique, or the quickest footwork, or the best serve, etc. In fact, they may not even be among the most talented bunch. But they get maximum return out of the assets in their possession because they have grasped, absorbed, marinated, and integrated the notion of “professionalism” into their athlete persona. They squeeze out every inch of the skills they possess. Those skills are usually obtained after long sessions of gritty work done on the practice court."

Alison Riske is one of those players. 

Does she have shortcomings in her game? Sure. For example, is she the best mover? Not necessarily, in terms of lateral movement specifically, running down from corner to corner, scrambling for balls on the stretch. To make up for that, she parks herself on, or inside the baseline, taking balls early and accelerating with flat balls (one reason why grass suits her game). She plays an aggressive brand of tennis.

She also has a high IQ. She is aware of the reasons why she loses a point, for example, whether she made a bad choice on the missed shot, or a good one only to miss on the execution. This ability to analyze under pressure also allows her to stay cool-headed through the up-and-down cycles during a match. She obviously subscribes to the notion of thinking only of “now” and battling for every point regardless of the score.  

“I was losing (points) in the fashion that I was trying to execute and trying to go for it,” Alison told Mert after the match. 

“I think that it's really a lot easier to forgive myself when I know that I'm trying the right thing. I'm doing the right thing, but I'm just not executing. Ultimately if I'm able to buckle down ever so slightly, give myself a little bit of a different target, pull that in, things are going to turn my way eventually.”

All of the above are reasons why Riske often overcomes challenges posed by more talented, more skilled opponents, and defeats them although she entered the court as an underdog, and wins a lot of close matches. Nick Kyrgios said about Rafa Nadal, “He plays every point. He doesn't take one point off.” He could have easily been talking about Alison Riske.

Ash Barty won 15 matches in a row. She now has a major trophy. She is still World No. 1.

She lost to a quality opponent riding a hot streak. This remains - and always will remain - an incredible season for Ash Barty. At 23, she is not in the position of Karolina Pliskova, who also lost on Monday and has never reached the Wimbledon Quarter Finals at age 27.

The hour isn't growing late in Barty's career.

The fun has just begun.

Ash Barty will have many more shots at winning Wimbledon. After winning so many matches, she was bound to have a day on which the ball bounced the wrong way - and an opponent as motivated as Alison Riske was able to line up her game the way she wanted to.

This will be a match Barty remembers for next year. The pain is real right now, but after a few days - and after returning home from Europe - Barty should be able to enjoy a brief post-Wimbledon vacation, savouring all that she has accomplished in 2019.

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