Barty defeats Kerber, advances to Wimbledon final

In what is known to be her favorite playing surface, World No. 1 Ash Barty battled from a break down in the second set to secure a straight-set victory over former major champion Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-6(3). She advances to her first Wimbledon singles final and is now looking to live out a childhood dream by winning the title. Fans thought she might have been able reach the final after her French Open win in 2019 but thankfully the wait is over.

If you know Barty’s game, you are familiar with her use of footwork to set up her versatile shot-making. But on Thursday, Barty brought more power to her game which hinted at the urge to make another major final. It appeared Barty was going to keep pressing the issue throughout the match and not allow Kerber to consistently utilize her great defensive play.

Barty won 88 percent of points on her first serve and added 8 aces on only 4 double faults. She hit 38 winners on 16 unforced errors and won 71 percent of her net points. Kerber was quite the opposite. She won 64 percent of points on her first serve and did not record a single ace. She hit more unforced errors were as well, recording 22, and only scored 16 winners.

Both players started off a set up 3-0 but Barty seemed much more comfortable with her break of serve than Kerber did. Barty faced one break point in that situation when trying to close out the first set, but cancelled it by hitting a winner. The Australian left no doubt in the second set tiebreaker when she won the first six points. She went on to close out the match four points later.

Barty awaits a matchup against the winner of the second Wimbledon semifinal between No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka and No. 8 seed Karolina Pliskova. The head-to-head records are 4-4 versus Sabalenka and 5-2 versus Pliskova. Both players hit very powerful groundstrokes so Barty will look to use her shot variation to stay in rallies and cause errors.

Match stats courtesy of IBM SlamTracker