{"id":36111,"date":"2021-02-17T19:10:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T20:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=36111"},"modified":"2021-02-18T02:29:07","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T02:29:07","slug":"how-beaten-barty-was-let-down-by-tennis-inaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=36111","title":{"rendered":"How beaten Barty was let down by tennis' inaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis legend Todd Woodbridge has called for the WTA and the ITF to tighten up the rules around medical time-outs after Ash Barty's Australian Open quarter-final was flipped on its head by a long stoppage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barty was cruising against her Czech opponent Karolina Muchova, up a set and a break and seemingly on her way to what would have been a date with her doubles partner Jennifer Brady in one of today's semi-finals, when Muchova called for a trainer and stopped the match for nearly 10 minutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch the Australian Open with live streams of every court at 9Now. Click here to start watching!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Medical<\/p>\n

The break completely changed the complexion of the match, with Muchova taking almost immediate control when play resumed, derailing a "runaway train" and breaking twice to win the second set having been down a break at 1-2 when the stoppage was taken.<\/p>\n

While Woodbridge was critical of Barty's inability to get the match back on her terms after losing momentum, he argued that she never should have been put in that position in the first place.<\/p>\n

"I think that it's been an issue for a long time, where players have used the rules to their advantage," Woodbridge told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

\"Karolina<\/p>\n

"I believe that we should know what the medical time-out was taken for and we're not usually told that.<\/p>\n

"And because we don't know, it opens up a Pandora's box of conspiracy theories. But when is an injury clearly an injury is the question, and how long can you stay away to change momentum.<\/p>\n

"Because clearly the match today, it changed the momentum and that is not in the spirit of what the rules are."<\/p>\n

\"Barty's<\/p>\n

Muchova came into the match with a question mark over her fitness, after she struggled with an abdominal strain in her fourth round clash with Elise Mertens.<\/p>\n

Yet she confirmed in her on-court interview immediately after the match that it wasn't the abdominal injury that she got treatment for, clarifying that she had been "lost", most likely as a result of the warm conditions.<\/p>\n

"They just checked my [blood] pressure and because I was a bit lost, I was spinning, so they cooled me down a bit, with ice, and it helped me," Muchova said.<\/p>\n

\"Muchova<\/p>\n

What Muchova did was clearly within the rules but the conversation quickly moved on to whether or not that should be the case.<\/p>\n

Tweeting during the match, American tennis legend Pam Shriver said a medical time out such as Muchova's "does not sit well when it pivots a match on a dime". Top US coach and analyst Brad Gilbert also branded the time-out rule "ridiculous".<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/bgtennisnation\/status\/1361875215857442822?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

Barty graciously said that all the players could do was "abide by the rules" since they don't write them, but Woodbridge called for an overhaul of the medical time-out system to stop them from unduly influencing the results of matches.<\/p>\n

"It falls on the WTA and the ITF within the rules to come up with a better, stricter procedure that potentially limits the time that you're allowed," Woodbridge said.<\/p>\n

"At the moment they can assess first and then you get an injury time-out, so it ends up taking 10-15 minutes sometimes.<\/p>\n

"That's obviously too long in terms of fairness to momentum of the match if it isn't legitimate. Sometimes it is legitimate, we've (only) seen that through the tournament occasionally. But it needs to be policed much stricter."<\/p>\n

\"Ash<\/p>\n

Like many other commentators, Woodbridge would only go so far in blaming the crucial medical time-out for Barty's demise.<\/p>\n

He said the second and third sets reminded him of a younger Barty, who at times played matches that went against her without any clear signs of a gear shift or tactical change.<\/p>\n

"Ash is the No.1 player in the world. She really should have been able to deal with it," Woodbridge said.<\/p>\n

"What then happened is she was completely unable to stop the momentum going the other way and that was a little bit to me what we knew of a younger Ash before she reached these heights.<\/p>\n

"Sometimes against the bigger players she wasn't able to halt that momentum."<\/p>\n

However, he added that it was only natural that Barty would be rusty from a match play point of view given she'd had a 50-week competitive lay-off before resuming earlier this month to win the Yarra Valley Classic.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

"It is very very hard for anyone to be able to compete at the highest levels under these sorts of expectations at the back end of massive tournaments when it's not as instinctive," he said.<\/p>\n

"She's still reacting because she hasn't played 50 matches through the season, she's only played nine matches. That's why it's important to keep playing and everything becomes interest in the bank for these big moments and you instinctively do things correctly and you don't even think about them.<\/p>\n

"I think [against Muchova] there was a moment when inwardness and thought processes got caught up, and when you go inwards it is very difficult to play at your best.<\/p>\n

"You play your best when you're looking down the other end and the court is open and free and you're on the front foot."<\/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<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis legend Todd Woodbridge has called for the WTA and the ITF to tighten up the rules around medical time-outs after Ash Barty's 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\/36111"}],"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=36111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36113,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36111\/revisions\/36113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}