ASH Barty is the pride of an entire continent tonight, as she won the 2022 Australian Open to become the first Australian to win the tournament in more than 40 years.

She is the first Australian since Chris O’Neil in 1978 to win their home Grand Slam, and defeated American Danielle Collins 6-3 7-6.

At the beginning of the first set it was a very tight affair. It was two games all early on, with Collins becoming only the second player after Amanda Anisimova to hold her opening service game against Barty.

It took until the fifth game of the set for either player to break the other, and it was Barty who was the one that did the breaking.

She went on to hold the break to eventually find herself at 5-2, and although Collins won the next game, it was not for much as Barty went on to win the following game and the set 6-3.

In the second set however, things started to change and Danielle Collins appeared to fire up and become a very different player to the one she was in the first.

She raced out to a 3-0 lead before Barty finally held a service game.

Collins then won the next two before Barty broke the Collins serve and then held her serve the following game. Barty then broke Collins again to being the score back to 5-4 in favour of Collins and the match had yet another twist in it’s story.

Barty then held serve again to really wrestle control back and level the set score line at five all. Both players then held their next service games to force the set into a tiebreaker.

Barty’s fightback seemed to rattle Collins, as she let Barty race away to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker. Collins then won a point but Barty won the next point and the crowd really started to get excited. Collins then won the next point to dampen the crowd’s excitement, but the excitement returned as Barty won the next two points to take the set and the match.

Across the match, Barty served a whopping 10 aces compared to Collins’ sole ace from the first set.

Despite this ace dominance, Barty served one more double fault than Collins did, and had a lower first serve in percentage than Collins for the match (57 to 63 per cent).

Although her second serve win percentage was quite low (45 per cent), her first serve percentage win percentage was quite high at 82 per cent. This compares to Collins’ 50 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.

In a nice surprise, it was former champion and Barty’s mentor Evonne Goolagong Cawley who was the one to present the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Trophy to Barty.

The victory was Barty’s third Grand Slam title after winning 2019 Roland Garros and 2021 Wimbledon, joining Serena Williams as the only other active player to win on all three surfaces of hard court, grass and clay. The 2022 Australian Open became Barty’s 15th career title, whilst for Collins, she moved into the Top 10 from the run at Melbourne Park.