Barty time in Melbourne?
China DailyWorld No 1 Ashleigh Barty is favored to win the Australian Open for the first time when the tournament begins on Monday. Ashleigh Barty will be hot favorite to win her home Australian Open for the first time, but even with Serena Williams absent the world No 1 faces threats from all angles. Unlike the Japanese star, who pulled out of a warm-up tournament last week saying her "body got a shock" after playing her first matches in four months, Barty appears to be back in the groove already. Barty won the French Open in 2019 and Wimbledon last year but her best performance in Melbourne was reaching the semifinals in 2020, where she lost to eventual champion Sofia Kenin. Last year's four Grand Slams were won by four different women-Osaka, Barbora Krejcikova, Barty and Emma Raducanu, and Osaka and Barty's early exits at the US Open underlined the point.