How Ash Barty defeated Danielle Collins at the 2022 Australian Open
A match analysis of Ash Barty's straight sets victory over Danielle Collins in the final of the 2022 Australian Open.
Ash Barty is the 2022 Australian Open champion!
How many of you sick bastards didn’t want this to happen? It’s about as touching a tale as we get in tennis as she become the first countrywoman to win the title since Chris O’Neil in 1978.
Her versatility1 and personality make her one of the most likeable world #1s in the history of our sport - I consider my a Barty fan now so, honestly, the tennis wasn’t a priority for me, I was quite happy for her to drop another two or three games against Danielle Collins in the final if it meant she walked away with the title.
But that’s not what we got and in hindsight, I’m glad it was a pretty decent fight. How was Collins able to keep both sets relatively tight? How did Barty eventually come through?
Let’s dive into the stats!
Don’t Underestimate Danielle
Many would have written Danielle Collins off going into the Australian Open final. She was seeded 27th and Barty had just defeated three Americans on the bounce to the tune of only 13 games lost.
The numbers don’t lie though. Now ranked #10 in the world, Collins was already playing top-10 level tennis prior to reaching the final. In 2021:
7th-best service hold % on hard-courts on tour.
Armed with incredibly aggressive return capabilities (more on that soon), 3rd-best second-serve return % on hard-courts on tour.
6th-highest win rate on hard-courts on tour.
She had handily beaten #9-ranked Iga Swiatek in the semifinals and her win over Clara Tauson in the third round was incredibly impressive (for similar reason to Collins, Tauson is arguably playing top-10 tennis on hard-courts too).
To top it all off, she’d handed Barty one of her only four losses in 2021 on hard-courts in Adelaide…
Not a cakewalk then?
Danielle Collins’ Resistance
The Weapon of Choice
All credit to Collins, she really did make this a ‘hell of a match’ (as Barty would put it).
Finding weaknesses in Ash’s game is extremely tough but if you’ve got a massive weapon in your game, there may be wiggle room to make her uncomfortable. Collins possesses a huge cross-court backhand, hit super-flat and low over the net to sending her opponents reeling.
A lot of Collins’ resistance stemmed from this shot, particularly on return.
It was the first match in Barty’s seven at the Australian Open where she failed to win the majority of her second-serve points - the pressure was constantly on this shot.
Controlling the Centre of the Court
Often off the back of this backhand return, Collins frequently found herself able to take on balls from the middle of the court.
Where Barty’s previous opponents had struggled to do much with a central ball (generally because of the weight of Barty’s forehand/lowness of her slice), Collins was able to move Ash from side to side with ease.
I’ve been raving about Barty’s slice all week but in this match-up, it was not a safe option hit anywhere in the court - Collins was incredibly adept at powering her backhand over the lowest part of the net from the centre of the court.
Collins’ ability to mop up central balls gave her a significant edge when employing the wide first-serve on either wing but particularly in the ad-court. Barty really struggled to get any width on that chip backhand return when stretched out wide - something she could ordinarily get away with but had no chance of surviving against Danielle.
Just look at how often Collins was able to find success with a wide first-serve.
Frequency going wide in deuce: 13/22 = 59%
Success going wide in deuce: 10/13 = 77%
Frequency going wide in ad: 13/18 = 72%
Success going wide in ad: 10/13 = 77%
Overall frequency going wide: 26/40 = 65%
Overall success going wide: 20/26 = 77%
It’s a good play against Barty if you can deal with the chip return. Oddly enough, Barty’s opponents also did well with their own wide serves.
Barty previous opponent’s frequency going wide: 62/174 = 36%
Barty previous opponent’s success going wide: 43/62 = 69%
They just didn’t go there often enough! Whether they wanted to use it sparingly for bigger moments or if they felt as though they couldn’t cope with Barty’s chip return in the ad-court, I don’t know… but Collins was the only one to capitalise with this play, controlling the centre of the court extremely well.
… This has all been very pro-Collins. Let’s balance the scales a bit.
Ash Barty’s Dominance
No Chip Return
I’m going to level with you - whilst those previous numbers on controlling the centre of the court are still impressive from Collins, a bit more information is required to understand why they are overwhelmingly in the American’s favour.
Remember I said Collins had the third-best second-serve return % on tour?
Well, her first-serve return win % was around 26th-best on tour.
Take away Collins’ ability to pulverise the return and she can end up looking a bit listless as to how to get the ball back in play. She’s amazing at the attacking end of the returning spectrum but when it comes to defending… Collins attempted a chip-return 8% of the time against arguably thee best server in the game at the moment.
The other 47 returns Collins could put a racket on were topspin returns - this didn’t often end well. Barty won 30 points in the first set - 18 of these points were unreturned serves. Hard to win rallies (i.e. dominate the centre of the court) when you're getting through your service games without hitting a rally ball.
Couple Collins’ vulnerability on first-serve return with the fact Barty is probably the best spot-server in the business at the moment? Cheap n’ easy points on first-serve laid the foundation for her victory.
Forehand Reliance
Outside of her service games, in the absence of backhand slice effectivity, Barty’s most important shot became the forehand.
Down 5-1 in the second set, this was the shot that kept her alive. She’d skip around Collins’ second-serve to get that forehand into play with much more purpose than her previous matches, taking on a bit more risk but putting the match in her own hands.
Collins actually mentioned she started having back issues near the end of the second set.
“I think she started to push me back in the court a little bit more and I was having some issues fully rotating on some of my shots… Yeah it was the reason why I wasn’t sitting down the whole tournament… Today was not my best physically.”
This could have been part of the reason she missed 9/12 of her first-serves between 5-1 and 5-5. Either way, Barty capitalised with forehand aggression in spades.
So, a final thought on the forehand and the match. And not in the tiebreak - though she played exceptionally there, a couple of uncharacteristic forehand errors without too much whip from Collins did indeed suggest she may have been physically ailing (see 0-0 and 5-2).
The most important point for me was won five games into the match - with the Barty forehand.
Big time play - on a big time point. Underrated in my opinion!
Ash Barty: 2022 Australian Open Champion
I guess what I’ve been trying to say throughout all of this is…
Collins is not a comfortable match-up for Barty (for anybody on a quick hard-court really). If Barty’s first-serve percentage starts to dip, Collins is absolutely the kind of player that can take the game out of the Aussie’s hands, possessing the racket-head skills to deal with the slice and the explosiveness to kill the second-serve return.
But with one weapon slightly subdued, Barty just leant a little more heavily on other star shots in her arsenal, most impressively in some incredibly crucial moments… The pressure was absolutely on to step forward with her first-serve and forehand and - of course - she delivered.
Honestly with Barty looking pretty much unbeatable in the run up to the final, I don’t think there are any players that could have given her a better run for her money.
So all credit to Collins, who was a worthy finalist, and Barty, who was a worthy champion. Congrats to both!
A parting coincidence to mull over…
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Joins Serena, Roger, Rafa and Novak as the only player to have won Grand Slams on hard-courts, clay and grass. Just the US to go now Ash!