{"id":28305,"date":"2021-01-28T21:13:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T22:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=28305"},"modified":"2021-01-29T03:07:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T03:07:27","slug":"why-adelaide-exhibition-is-key-for-barty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=28305","title":{"rendered":"Why Adelaide exhibition is key for Barty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis legend Todd Woodbridge<\/a> says today's exhibition tournament in Adelaide will be a key indicator of where Ash Barty<\/a> is at ahead of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

The world No.1 will play her first competitive match in nearly a year, when she faces reigning Wimbledon champion Simona Halep, as part of the star-studded 'A Day at the Drive.'<\/p>\n

It marks the start of the virus-delayed summer of tennis, ahead of next month's Australian Open.<\/p>\n

THE ADELAIDE SUPERSLAM WILL BE LIVE ON NINE THIS AFTERNOON FROM 1:30PM AEDT. CHECK LOCAL GUIDES FOR DETAILS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barty, who sat out the US Open in September, and also the French Open which followed, hasn't played since a semi-final loss to Petra Kvitova in Doha last February.<\/p>\n

According to Woodbridge, the opportunity to get some matches under her belt is vital.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"For Ash, this is a really important day today, to see where she's at with matchplay," Woodbridge told TODAY.<\/p>\n

"It's an exhibition match before she plays the tournament in Melbourne, that's the lead-in tournament.<\/p>\n

"She's been practicing, leading into this since October, she's fit and ready, and we'll get a good indication of what she's able to do."<\/p>\n

Woodbridge said today's line-up at Memorial Drive is world class.<\/p>\n

"It's going to be fantastic, think of all the major championships there. Novak Djokovic takes on a young Italian, Jannik Sinner, who we're going to see an enormous amount of over the next decade or so," he said.<\/p>\n

"And then you've got Serena (Williams) versus Naomi (Osaka), it doesn't get any better than that, Naomi of course the current US Open champion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"And then the world No.1 Ash Barty, takes on the current Wimbledon champion in Simona Halep, that's awesome, and we've got Rafa (Nadal), who just won the French, (he) takes on Dominic Thiem, who won the US Open.<\/p>\n

"I don't think Adelaide, and Memorial Drive, has ever had a day where you've had this many grand slam champions playing against each other in one schedule."<\/p>\n

Apart from Barty, Australian eyes will be on Nick Kyrgios<\/a> when he takes to the court in Melbourne next week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old is another who hasn't played since the pandemic forced the tennis schedule to be suspended last March, and Woodbridge says the longer matches at the Australian Open will make that tournament tough for Kyrgios.<\/p>\n

"We're still waiting to see Nick hit the court, we've seen a couple of little clips, hopefully he's had the practice he needs," Woodbridge explained.<\/p>\n

"I think it's probably a little bit harder for him when he gets to the Open, because of the best-of-five-sets scenario.<\/p>\n

"But if there's one player who can walk out and serve aces, hit dynamic shots, and rattle the opposition, it's Nick Kyrgios.<\/p>\n

"We've got two good chances, two very different personalities."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennis legend Todd Woodbridge says today's exhibition tournament in Adelaide will be a key indicator of where Ash Barty is at ahead of the Australian […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28307,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28305\/revisions\/28307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}