Stosur reacts to Barty’s historic victory

ASH Barty captured the hearts of Aussies nation-wide on Saturday night, winning the Australian Open women’s singles title with a straight sets victory over American Danielle Collins.

The victory was Barty’s third Grand Slam title and her first on home soil, having previously won both Wimbledon and the French Open.

Before Barty, the most recent Australian to reach the pinnacle of the sport and win a major was Sam Stosur, who claimed the US Open women’s singles crown in 2011.

Stosur was at Rod Laver Arena commenting the final alongside Brett Phillips for *SEN*, and she told listeners that she doesn’t know whether it can get better for Barty after winning on home soil.

“Wimbledon was always her pinnacle, that was the one she wanted, she got that last year but I don’t know if you can get better than this moment,” Stosur said.

“When you get home after so long, you can see she doesn’t [usually] give away much emotion, but you saw after that match point, she let out the biggest roar I think we’ve ever seen from her.

“You can tell how much it means to her, that was absolutely incredible.”

As a Grand Slam champion herself, Stosur gave an insight of what it feels to reach the mountaintop of the game with a major victory.

“It’s an incredible feeling, moment, you feel like you’ve obviously achieved something you’ve always dreamed of,” Stosur said.

“To go through and know, ‘Wow, I actually did that’, there is nothing better.

“For Ash to come back in that second set, she was 5-1 down, she was losing ground in those rallies, Collins was getting pumped… but those last couple of games she absolutely dominated, and that tiebreak was flawless.”

 

– BY LACHLAN GELEIT/ SEN