ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL

February 24, 2021

Ashleigh Barty

Press Conference

D. COLLINS/A. Barty

6-3, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You got off to a flying start in both sets, but obviously it got away from you. Can you put your finger on why that happened?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Yeah, I think the first game in particular Danielle gave me quite a trip, breaking serve right to start off with. The court was exceptionally quick, probably the quickest I've ever played in Australia and that took some time to adjust. I felt like I knew the pace, it was finding a way to navigate through the match.

But yeah, Danielle was able to control the center of the court, control the baseline and hold court position and on a really quick court that's vital.

And she was able to get first strike in on most occasions and particularly when she's seeing so many second serves. I had games where I had clumps of 2, 3, 4, 5, second serves in games, it's easy to get that court position.

Q. Was that, did you feel comfortable on serve? The first set I think it was 46 percent or something first serve. Is that a worry for you?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Oh, no, no worry. I felt like I just missed my spots at times and I think it was the 3-1 game I made one first serve in that game, just gave her a look back into the match.

And just disappointing, I think, to have two sets in a row where I went on a run of losing games. But also in that second set I felt like I probably went away from what was working a little bit on serve and just gave her an opportunity to get back into the match.

Q. She suggested you might have felt a bit fatigued after your schedule the last few weeks after the long layoff. Did you feel any fatigue out there?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: No, not at all. I was physically fine.

Q. What next? When do you work out your schedule of what's happening for you?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: We sit down like we always do at the end of a match, after a tournament, and sit down and look at what's next. And then I'll have that discussion with my team in the next day or so, to work out as best as we can what we do moving forward.

Obviously it's an ever changing world that we're living in now, it can change quite dramatically quite quickly. So I think we'll sit down and do what's best for us and know that that's kind of the right decision for us.

Q. Do you have a feel about what that will look like though at the moment?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Not sure just yet.

Q. Storm won today and there were a few other upsets. I guess Australia's sporting public is very demanding and expects to you win every time. Is it sort of a bit of a reminder about how tough and tight it is out on the circuit, particularly given today's results?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Yeah, I think from my point of view it's very easy to remember that Danielle and I played in the semifinal here just 12 months ago, so I think you know that there are no easy matches going into any tournament.

And I think as, from an expectation public point of view, I think that's their views and that's their opinions and they're 100 percent able to voice those. But I think from a playing perspective it's about what do we expect of us as players in what do we bring to the court each day. We bring the right professionalism, we prepare the right way and then the result is, it just is what it is.

It's not always going to go your way, you can't win every single tennis match, but you can sure as hell approach it the right way. And I think for my team and for me we did that this week and we just didn't quite get that result that went our way.