Ash Barty falls to shock defeat in Olympics opener

by Les Roopanarine

When Ashleigh Barty was asked on the eve of the Olympics about the possibility of winning a gold medal, she said: “You have to dare to dream, you have to allow yourself to think, ‘Why not me?’”

Clearly Sara Sorribes Tormo was listening. The Spaniard, ranked 48th in the world and with only one previous win over a top 10 player to her name, made light of her underdog status to fashion a stunning upset as she sent the world No 1 crashing to a 6-4, 6-3 defeat.

Barely two weeks after winning her first Wimbledon title, Barty looked desperately out of sorts, struggling with her footwork, shot selection and consistency as she lost four of the opening five games. Though she rallied briefly after conceding a break early in the second set, the Australian top seed never looked comfortable, spraying 55 unforced errors as she wilted in the blistering Tokyo heat. 

“It was a tough day, a disappointing day,” said Barty. “I can’t lie about that. It was just loose. I knew I wanted to try and take the match on today and it was going to be a fine line of pushing too hard and not getting stuck into patterns I didn’t want to get stuck in. [I was] just too erratic today, I wasn’t able to make enough balls.

“Credit to Sara though, she is always a tough competitor,” added Barty, whose medal hopes now rest on her doubles campaign alongside Storm Sanders. “I never really felt comfortable out there and wasn’t able to play the match on my terms. The key to my game is serving well and I wasn’t able to do that today. I was a bit erratic and made too many errors.”

Sorribes Tormo, who won the first title of her career in Guadalajara four months ago, was contrastingly steady, looping high balls to the Barty backhand and making just 13 unforced errors as she carved out the biggest win of her career. As she acknowledged afterwards, the Spaniard, who beat Naomi Osaka in the Billie Jean King Cup last year, relishes representing her country.

“I still have goosebumps, it’s amazing,” said Sorribes Tormo. “It’s the best victory in my career, because of the place, for who she is, because of what Olympics means to me and because of playing for Spain. 

“The dream of my life was playing here. I still have goosebumps. Winning against the No 1 … I don’t know how to describe it.”

There were no such problems for Osaka, the world No 2, who won the opening five games against China’s Zheng Saisai as she cruised to a 6-1, 6-4 victory in her first match since withdrawing from the French Open at the end of May over mental health concerns.

“The Olympics has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, so I feel like the break that I took was very needed,” said Osaka, the US and Australian Open champion, who lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony. “I feel definitely a little bit refreshed and I’m happy again.

“I feel a little bit out of my body right now. There’s nothing wrong with my body, I just felt really nervous. I haven’t played since France, so there were definitely some things that I did a bit wrong. But I think I can improve.”

Aryna Sabalenka, the third seed, swept past Poland’s Magda Linette 6-2, 6-1, while Wimbledon finalist Karolina Pliskova dismissed Alizé Cornet of France 6-1, 6-3. 

Pliskova, who dropped just six points on serve, will play Carla Suárez Navarro in round two after the Spaniard defeated Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur 6-4, 6-1 to claim her first victory since returning from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“I am really happy,” said Suárez Navarro, the former world No 6, who plans to retire after the US Open. “For me, it was tough all these months. I was so happy on the court and I really enjoyed this week. This is a really special event for me, for us, for everyone. I am really happy for my first win after the comeback.”

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