Ashleigh Barty Australian Open journey comes to an end: World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty lost her quarter-final match to World No. 27 Karolina Muchova. With this win, Muchova has now secured her first Grand Slam semi-final.
Leading 6-1, 2-1 in the match against the Czech Republic's Muchova, Barty dominated in the opening set. Muchova took an injury time-out and was treated for nearly ten minutes by medical staff during the second set. The 24-year-old came back and rebounded to stun Barty 1-6 6-3 6-2, upsetting many of her fans.
The loss cut short Barty's journey to becoming the first Australian woman to win the title in Melbourne since Chris OβNeil in 1978. "It's a disappointment today, without a doubt," Barty said after the loss. "I would have loved to have done better and just been a little bit sharper the next game . I just made a couple of loose errors in that game. I think for the rest of the set, that was the story."
Last week, World number one Barty reacahed the last-32 in Melbourne for the fifth consecutive year.
"I started to feel a bit lost by the end of the first set and my head was spinning, so I took a break," Muchova explained after the match. "They cooled me down a bit with ice and it helped me."
This was Muchova's rare victory over a top-five. In 2019, she played against No. 3 Karolina Pliskova at Wimbledon and won.
24-year-old Muchova will now face No. 22-seeded Jennifer Brady in the Australian Open semifinal on Thursday.
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