Ashleigh Barty’s coach can pinpoint the moment when the Australian morphed from good to a great.

It was last year’s French Open semi-final: Barty had lost the first set to American teenager Amanda Anisimova and was 0-3 down in the second.

Then, according to coach Craig Tyzzer, came the moment.

“She probably doubted herself completely,” Tyzzer told reporters ahead of Barty’s first-round match on Tuesday at the Adelaide International.

“She went up early against Amanda and then lost her way, almost convinced herself she couldn’t win it.

“And to actually then just stand up and go ‘nup, I can do this’ was probably the biggest step for me forward in 18 months that we had been working on stuff.

“For me, that led to her winning a grand slam; it led to her becoming world No.1 – without that semi, all that probably doesn’t happen.”

After staring at the abyss, Barty won the next six games straight to claim the second set and took the third 6-3.

She blitzed Marketa Vondrousova in the final, 6-1 6-3, to capture her first grand slam, one of four tournament triumphs in a year propelling the Queenslander to world No.1.

On Tuesday, Barty meets Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a first-round encounter at the redeveloped Memorial Drive at the Adelaide International.

After a shock first-round loss last week at the Brisbane International, Barty wants some serious game time in Adelaide before heading to the Australian Open starting on Monday in Melbourne.

“Every match here is a bonus,” Barty said on Monday.

“I feel like I have trained and done all the preparation well to put myself in a position to try and play my best tennis, and that is all I can ask of myself.

“Regardless if it’s one match or whether it’s three, four, five matches here, we will be ready come next week.”