World number one Ash Barty has to handle both a young fast improving opponent in the form of her life and the massive expectation of a home nation and the latter will be just as difficult as the first. We have seen it so often in Paris from French players and here in Melbourne from the Aussies in recent years and the additional pressure really seems to weigh heavy on home based players. Barty has the talent to win this event and a nice variety in her game, but last year was the first time she had made it past R3 in Melbourne (lost easily to Kvitova in the last 8) and 5 of her last 11 matches here have gone to three sets and she has lost at least one set in seven of those.

 

Elena Rybakina is just 20 years of age and was ranked 171 this time last year, now #26, she is 11-1 for 2020 and within that 4-1 against top 50 players so is still improving. She feels that it all clicked for her with two things, finishing school and hiring her first ever full time coach, former ATP player Stefano Vukov and she has not looked back since the two started working together...............

 

WTA Insider: What has been the key to your improvement over the last 12 months?
Rybakina: Last year I started to focus on tennis much more because before I was still in school. It was not easy for me because I couldn't skip school. I didn't have a coach who could travel with me.

So now I'm focusing for the last year only on tennis and I have a great coach. He's helping me a lot. We started working in February and we improved a lot of things. With his help, it's working.

She is a tall, strong girl with an aggressive game and big serve and can give Barty problems. The #1 has a losing record (8-9) against top 50 ranked opponents who are 1.83m+ tall ( Rybakinsa is listed at 1.84m and probably taller now) and of those eight wins, six came in a deciding set !