She’s carved out a spectacular year of firsts and Ashleigh Barty says she’s entering more unknown territory at the WTA Finals in China.
Barty opens her quest on Sunday to crown her stunning season win the biggest cheque in women’s tennis history against Swiss world No.7 Belinda Bencic.
“I never played Belinda before. I practised with her once or twice. She’s exceptionally good on holding baseline, taking the ball early and putting you under time pressure,” said Australia’s world No.1.
“It’s important for me to bring some variety in the match, to serve well. I feel like this court, you get rewarded if you serve well, hit your spots. That’s a focus for me coming into the match.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ll have to wait and see a little bit. Having not played her, it’s a little bit of the unknown. It’s a match where we’ll sit down and try to work a game plan that we think will be effective and go from there.”
Like Barty, Bencic has exceeded all expectations in 2019 to make it to Shenzhen.
A semi-finalist at the US Open, the 22-year-old only secured her ticket to China this month after landing her second title of the season in Moscow.
“It’s the most excited I’ve ever been for a match celebration,” she said.
“I mean, it’s just my real feelings. I was just so relieved, like, the moment I converted the match point and realised I made it to here in the last minute possible.
“It has become a big goal for me – just super relieved.
“I have to say when we were starting the season and we would say we would be top 30 in the end of the year, we would be pretty happy about it.
“So this season went even better than we planned, more consistent. This is really like a bonus for me.
“I just really want to enjoy my first WTA Finals, just make the best out of it.”
Barty and Bencic clash after Sunday’s tournament opener between the other two members of the Red Group, Naomi Osaka and Petra Kvitova, in a rematch of this year’s Australian Open final that Osaka won in three sets.
An undefeated winner of the title this week would pocket $US4.75 million ($A6.95 million).
