I think the kindest thing to say about Ashley Katz’s performance in Playford today was that she was completely outclassed by Monique Barry and, as I wrote earlier, she really should have been double bagelled by the left-handed New Zealander. There were highlight shots and rallies scattered throughout the match, but Katz managed to hit just three winners – and two of those were in the same game in the first set. It was an indication of things to come that Katz started the match with a double fault, with the highlight in the first game being a beautiful forehand lob from Barry to end the first good rally. Katz hit her next forehand over the baseline to hand Barry an immediate break, and the latter hit a couple of lovely forehand winners on the way to holding serve.
The third game had all sorts of drama before it ended after three deuces, with Katz again starting with a double fault. Errors from her gave away the first deuce, but Barry gifted her the second when she ended a good rally with a forehand over the baseline on the 16th shot. Barry then hit a beautiful inside-out forehand winner to get to the third deuce, but gave away the game after just under seven minutes when she hit her next two finishing shots over the baseline. The next game was where Katz hit her two winners, with a nice cross-court backhand volley and a beautiful forehand winner down the line. That wasn’t enough, though, as Barry hit beautiful inside-out forehand winners of her own to get the advantage after each deuce, and finished with the first ace of the match.
There were two great rallies in the next game, lasting 14 and 17 shots respectively, and the second of those was the best in the match. It ended with Katz being forced to leave a backhand short of the net, and Barry hit a fabulous cross-court backhand winner to complete another break of serve. Barry then held comfortably, switching to the forehand for this game’s outstanding cross-court winner. She switched to the backhand again to take the first point off Katz, and stayed with that for a beautiful cross-court backhand volley. A forced error from Katz gave up a set point, and she sent a poor forehand into the tramlines to end the set after 31 minutes.
Barry held serve easily to start the second set before being forced into an error to end another great rally on Katz’s first point. She hit a beautiful cross-court forehand winner next up, but three poor unforced errors from her gifted Katz a hold that she didn’t deserve. Barry then held to love before Katz hit four unforced errors in a row to lose her serve, but she did hit her only winner of the set in the next game, a beautiful backhand down the line. A forehand over the baseline from Barry gave away a break point, but she saved that with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner to end another good rally before hitting two more unforced errors to give away an actual break of serve.
Katz then held to love, but again it was only through Barry’s generous gift of four more unforced errors, the first coming at the end of a great 16 shot rally. She did better on her own serve, starting with a fabulous cross-court backhand winner and finishing with an ace down the middle. It wasn’t given as such in the stats, but it was aimed directly at the camera and didn’t appear to touch Katz’s racquet on the way through. More unforced errors from both players meant that Katz was facing more break points, but at least the break was from the shot of the match, a fantastic cross-court backhand winner from Barry to end another great rally. It was all over 90 seconds later after Barry held to love, bringing up match point with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner before Katz hit yet another forehand over the baseline. The final score was 6-1, 6-3, and the match took an hour and one minute.