Ashleigh Barty created history in the ALYA WTA Malaysian Open by becoming the first player to reach both the singles and doubles finals at TPC Kuala Lumpur today.
In the singles semi-finals today, the World No 158 Australian caused another upset by seeing off 139 th ranked Han Xinyun 6-3, 7-5 to make her first tour final.
It was tight in the first set, before Ashleigh broke in the eighth game and held her serve in the next to seal it.
In the second set, Ashleigh broke the first and 11 th game, and served an ace at match point to become the first qualifier since Taiwan’s Hsieh Su Wei in 2012 to reach the final.
“It was a quality match. I think I played my best tennis the entire week today. I am just really happy to come out in straight sets and hopefully, I can play better tomorrow,” said Ashleigh today.
“My service game and forehand worked well against Xinyun. The courts here also suit my game fairly. I am just happy to get a lot of matches this week and fight for the title.
“It feels great to reach my first career final…my body feels great and I am ready to go for another day.”
Lucky Shirt?
We can’t help from noticing that Ashleigh is wearing the same design every time she played. When asked……
Yes, we do!
“I’ve been using this set in the Australian Open. I did well there, so I started to use this since. ”
“It’s like my lucky shirt”, she added
“But rest assured, this is NOT THE SAME SHIRT. I’ve got a whole stack of the same coloured shirt”, with a hearty laugh
Ok, she at least has 4
This is the only time we saw Ashleigh using other outfits during her match
Congratulations Ashleigh for entering the finals for both singles and doubles (partnering Casey Dellacqua)
