As new season dawns, Kerber backs Barty to handle world No.1 pressures

Former world number one Angelique Kerber knows the pressure of starting a new season as the player everyone wants to beat, but she is confident Ashleigh Barty can meet the challenge.

The Australian had a breakout year in 2019, winning the French Open along with the prestigious WTA Finals, where she cemented her place atop the year-end rankings.

Both Kerber and Barty, along with former world number one Naomi Osaka, begin their 2020 campaigns at the Brisbane International from Monday.

“She’s always a tough opponent. She’s such a great player, a great person as well and I’m really happy for her that she reached the number one spot,” the German told reporters of Barty.

“She put a lot of effort in and she worked hard. It’s always a tougher year to start as the number one player but I think she will deal with that situation.”

Kerber well knows the perils of battling to back up a breakthrough season.

After winning Grand Slams in 2016 and 2018, she struggled to emulate her results in the following years.

“I was really trying to enjoy, but you really have to schedule your day a bit different than if you were number 20 or number 30 in the world,” she said.

“You have to improve every single tournament, every year, because even if you win a Grand Slam, everyone is looking to beat you.”

But she is confident the level-headed Barty has what it takes to handle the expectations of her home fans and the extra off-court workload that comes with being the best player on the planet.

“It’s for sure completely different -- she has all the pressure, all the expectation, especially here in Australia,” said Kerber.

Since finishing 2016 as world number one after winning the Australian and US Opens, Kerber slipped to 21 the following year then climbed back to number two when she won Wimbledon in 2018.

Now ranked 20, she has a new coach -- Didi Kindlmann -- and is keen for a fresh start.

“I was really looking forward to 2019 being over and we are 2020 now so I’m really looking forward to starting again,” she said.

Meanwhile, multiple Grand Slam winners Serena Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova are set to resume their 16-year rivalry after being drawn Saturday to face each other in the first round of next week’s Auckland WTA Classic.

Tournament top seed Serena, 38, and Kuznetsova, 34, are in a competitive half of the draw in which the veterans are competing against the rising stars of tennis, including American teen sensations Amanda Anisimova and Coco Gauff as well as 22-year-old Latvian Jelena Ostapenko.

Serena leads Kuznetsova 10-3 in their head-to-heads dating back to 2004 and has won 23 Grand Slams compared to two for the Russian.

The last time Serena played in Auckland, in 2017, she had problems with the wind and was bundled out in the second round before going on to win the Australian Open a few weeks later.

The 15-year-old Gauff, who hit the headlines with her first round win over Venus Williams at Wimbledon last year, opens against World number 56 and 2019 Auckland semi-finalist Viktoria Kuzmova, while Anisimova has been drawn against Ukraine’s Kateryna Kozlova.

Ostapenko, the seventh seed, plays Germany’s Laura Siegemund in the first round.

On the other side of the draw, fifth seed Caroline Wozniacki, who will be playing her penultimate tournament before retiring after the Australian Open, faces unheralded New Zealander Paige Hourigan in the first round.

Wozniacki will also team up with Serena in the doubles for the first time.

Agence France-Presse