Teenage prodigy Destanee Aiava was knocked out of the Australian Open before most local fans found a seat on Monday, but a spirited first appearance in her home grand slam delivered a $50,000 windfall for 92 minutes’ labour – not bad work if you can get it for a school holiday job.
The 16-year-old Melburnian was beaten but far from outclassed, losing 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) to Mona Barthel, now the world No181, but previously as high as 23 in the world rankings and certainly no slouch. Ten years Aiava’s senior, the German entered this clash with five Australian Open campaigns behind her, a couple of tour titles to her name and scalps such as last year’s champion Angelique Kerber.
The contrast could not have been more pronounced: veteran nous v the sprit of youth; height v grunt; cautious defence v unselfconscious attack. Both of Barthel’s parents are doctors and her father once won a European shotputting title, so poor Mona, you suspect, has a decent amount of high-achieving to live up to.
Aiava’s pedigree is arguably more suited to the brutally physical world of modern professional sport – her father is Australia’s mixed martial arts coach and her mother a former representative rugby union player and footballer. At times in this match, as she swivelled into another sizzling forehand winner, you could just as easily imagine Aiava side-stepping hapless tacklers, breaking the line and sailing past the net for a try.
All of this is moot. Barthel proved adept at reaching and returning most of what the teenager belted at her, which was plenty, and that, coupled with a sturdy if unimposing service game, was enough for her to prevail. Hints at frailty on the latter front surfaced only as bookends to the match. Barthel offered the Australian two break points early in the first set – an opening Aiava missed by attacking quite admirably – and then finally lost her serve while looking to close out the match at 5-4 in the second.
Experience told in the tiebreaker, in which Barthel raced to a 3-0 lead before easing her way to victory.
A telling statistic here was that Aiava’s first serve came down at only 55% (Barthel managed 66%), but she won 74% of her points on it; had she upped the first number significantly she might have caused her opponent all sorts of trouble. Ditto the Australian’s inability to nail more than one of four break points offered up. The teenager produced six more winners than her opponent, but 14 more unforced errors, and that balance of trade was telling.
Yet in all senses bar the scoreline it was an assured debut from Aiava, who achieved the distinction of becoming the first player born in the 21st century to feature in a grand slam singles match. Early on it had seemed likely she would make mincemeat of Barthel’s gentle second serve, and a pair of blistering passing shots in the German’s second service game lifted a polite capacity crowd.
A deft drop shot or two also showed the finesse and skill that will develop with more grand slam experience, but the raw ingredients here are compelling. At the peak of her physical development she will be a ball-striker to fear.
Other than that obvious power and strength, Aiava’s most impressive trait so far is her composure when things aren’t going to plan, which is relatively often when you’re no longer hammering the ball past kids but dealing with hardened tour professionals such as Barthel. Nothing troubled her notably until her post-game press conference, in which she mumbled just as any put-upon teenager should.
If the past fortnight is anything to go by, the Australian is also pleasingly unencumbered by your typical “tennis parents”. Her mother Rosie was a picture of equanimity sitting courtside with Daria Gavrilova on Monday and said earlier in the week that this catchy new name in Australian tennis was the result of an inescapable feeling her daughter was simply meant to be. On current evidence her instincts appear prescient.
While chalking up this loss as a kind of moral victory and something fresh for the women’s game in Australia, it’s also worth noting how poignantly the teen sensation’s story dovetails with the grand slam return of Ashleigh Barty, not so long ago the occupant of Aiava’s current position in the scheme of things but now, at the positively ancient age of 20, already an honours graduate from the school of hard knocks.
On Monday afternoon Barty was facing an Australian Open crowd for the first time since she upped and left tennis altogether in September 2014, favouring the country’s other summer sporting obsession in the shape of a speculative season with Women’s Big Bash League cricket side Brisbane Heat.
Upon her return one can’t help but ponder the financial disparity in the upper echelons of the two sports; a one-hour Australian Open loss here would have netted Barty more than twice as much as a full season in the WBBL. And so it was that the right-hander appeared on Margaret Court Arena to face 50th ranked baseliner Annika Beck, another German with egghead parents: chemistry professors both.
Barty’s 6-4, 7-5 triumph to register her maiden Australian Open singles win was not as straightforward as the scoreline suggests. She trailed 3-0 early in the first set before determinedly breaking back in the fourth game and going from strength to strength thereafter, swapping jittery indecision for a muscular command of the match and betraying few signs of the shoulder injury that shortened her pre-tournament campaign in Hobart.
To clinch the first set Barty opened up break and set point at 5-4, and on the second attempt nailed the door shut with a cracking double-handed backhand winner down the line. Though she boasted a dozen more unforced errors than the German at that point, Barty also possessed the lion’s share of their combined gumption.
The second set was utterly strange. Just as quickly as she’d assumed control in the first Barty surrendered it, losing her serve twice to trail 4-2, but the mood soon swung back in her favour. She levelled it at 4-4 and then, at 6-5, opened up two match points on Beck’s serve, sealing a successful comeback from the second. Her win came in an hour and 40 minutes, and Barty will now face giant-slaying American Shelby Rogers, who recorded the upset of the first day in defeating fourth seed Simona Halep in straight sets.
Another Australian winner on day one was 17-year-old Jaimee Fourlis, who dispatched American Anna Tatishvili 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 42 minutes, taking her chances to progress to the second round and an $80,000 pay day. Like Barty and their countryman Alex De Minaur, she showed that Destanee Aiava is not the only name to pencil in for higher honours in coming campaigns.
