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Australian tennis superstar Ash Barty has made history in beating defending champion Elina Svitolina at the $14 million WTA Finals.
It wasn’t an easy victory, as Barty was tested further in the second set, but ran out the eventual winner 6-4, 6-3.
Barty had won two of her round robin matches before the final, so she pocketed a cool $6.4 million – of that, a massive prize of $3.4 million for the final win. It is the biggest ever prizemoney awarded in men’s or women’s tennis.
If she had lost, Barty would have only received $3 million in total, which would still have been quite the prize after claiming over $10m in prizemoney throughout the season.
The 23-year-old’s latest triumph capped a dream regular season in which Barty also landed her maiden grand slam crown at the French Open in June.
It also completed her perfect preparation for next week’s Fed Cup final against France in Perth, where Barty will bid to lead Australia to glory for the first time since 1974.
Ashleigh Barty of Australia hits a return against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine during their women’s singles in the WTA Finals tennis tournament in Shenzhen. Picture: Noel Celis / AFP
Svitolina, as she won all her matches in the round robin stages, would have pocketed $6.8m for the win, but still won $3.5m for finishing runner up.
While most of Barty’s rivals spent the week complaining of the notoriously soft and slow purple court, Barty went quietly about her business, dropping serve just three times in her four wins over world No.2 Karolina Pliskova, world No.6 Petra Kvitova, world No.7 Belinda Bencic and now the eighth-ranked Svitolina. Barty finished the regular season with a WTA-best 15 wins over top-10 opponents as well as a tour-leading four titles from six finals, her latest success coming indoors having already picked up trophies on clay, grass and hard courts in 2019.
Throw in an equal-tour-high 55 wins from 67 matches and Barty is nothing less than a worthy year-end world No.1.
Barty had lost all five of her previous encounters with Svitolina, but emerged on a mission on Sunday night.
She dropped only five points in her first four service games before snaring the opening set with a booming forehand return winner down the line. Barty dropped serve twice in the second set but, as champions do, broke back each time.
The match was all over after one hour and 27 minutes.