The Wimbledon quarter finals are set to put Aussie against Aussie this year. 50 years after Evonne Goolagong Cawley won her first Wimbledon title, Ash Barty has reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time. It comes after Barty defeated Czech champion Barbora Krejcikova, ending her 15-match streak by winning 7-5 6-3.
“Probably for the first 15 or 20 minutes, I felt like I was really struggling to pick up her ball off her racket,” said Ash Barty after the match.
“I wasn’t able to give myself a chance to get into games, plain and simple. Once I was able to do that, getting a break back instantly at 4-3 to level things out was a good game. Again, I made more balls and gave myself a chance. It was just about giving myself time to settle into the match in a sense of feeling super free and super comfortable, just working my way into games.”
She’ll go on to face Australia’s number two player Ajla Tomljanovic, who is through after her opponent, Britain’s Emma Raducanu, retired with breathing problems on Monday.
There has been concern about the scheduling of the games for this round, with Barty completing her fourth round win by 2.42pm, playing on Court One.
Tomljanovic vs Raducanu was not scheduled next on Court One, and instead had to wait for the end of a four-hour men’s five-setter played by Felix Auger-Aliassime and Alexander Zverev.
The result was that while Barty had been resting off the court for hours, Tomljanovic and Raducanu didn’t start playing until 8pm. Their match then went for 75 minutes before Raducanu retired, and was the last women’s fourth-round game to end.
All the action of the Wimbledon quarter finals will be on 9Gem with commentators Roz Kelly, Todd Woodbridge, Sam Groth, Jelena Dokic and Brett Phillips.
Barty Vs. Tomljanovic, Wimbledon quarter finals: Live July 7th 1:30am AEST on 9Gem, 9Now, and Stan Sport