Dominika Dominant - eventually!

Next a chance to see my first match this Aus Open featuring an Australian, and in Ashleigh Barty we have know of the most promising young players in decades. Already a junior Wimbledon champion, Ash has come through the rankings by playing the lower tier events to reach 174 and still only 16.
Our expectations of her against in form Dominika Cibulkova are clearly less than our hopes but Ash is confident that in every match she plays she is a chance of winning, an attitude necessary in professional tennis.
For Cibulkova, fresh off a final in Sydney, nothing less than a win would suffice today.
Frequent visitor to the top 20 and now resident at 14, Dominika for her height manages to cause trouble for all the top 10 players, just ask Petra Kvitova and Sara Errani both of whom she knocked over last week.
Ash opened nervously as one should suspect and had two break points on her serve. The way she saved them and then held on for a 1-0 lead was impressive. Dominika levelled with a love game and Ashleigh held more comfortably as an entree to surprising the 15th seed with a polished returning performance. The break was the Australian's and 3-1 not the scoreline bookies had pencilled in.
Normality resumed as Dominika broke in the next and held for 3-3.
Unperturbed as most 16 year olds tend to be Ashleigh just kept attacking and with the inevitable errors came a pleasurable assortment of winners and heading the list a wonderful and oft repeated demonstration of the drop shot.
Dominika served at 3-4 and was under immense pressure with break points flowing to Barty. The break came and excitingly the young prospect could serve out her first set in a Grand Slam main draw.
When a first serve was at a premium Ash could not find one in the first three attempts. She fell behind 0-30 and the crowd sighs accompanied the teenage dilemma. Fortunately the third second serve was good enough to negotiate a path to 15-30 and then things lit up and the pièce de résistance was the ace to deliver the first set to Ash Barty.
Reality checks are varied in delivery but none come quite as harsh as the one dealt by Dominika in the second set.  Coming to grips with someone new on the scene and needing to do it by playing her for the first time at a Grand Slam event can be a difficult hurdle to clear.  By the end of the second game of set 2 the Barty fence had been negotiated by Cibulkova and there was no catching the Slovak terrier.  While Barty continued the attacking approach, Cibulkova began plugging up the gaps in her defensive game and limited the number of winning shots off the Australian racquet. 

Simultaneously, the Sydney form returned and the shots to behold were Dominika's shots.
Soon Ash will have a contigency plan to prevent the excessive bleeding that her game suffered, but there was none today and Dominika swept to a 6-0 delight, and the match was square.
Only on the scoreboard did any equality exist because on the court the direction of the match had no intention of altering.  Cibulkova went for the jugular and the pocket rocket hit enough memorable ground strokes to suggest that she may have a second week engagement or more to prepare for on Rod Laver Arena.  3-6 6-0 6-1  I had expected a straight sets win so Ashleigh Barty can be proud of her first set performance as she takes another valuable lesson from Melbourne Park.