Ash Barty’s hopes of winning a gold medal are officially over after she suffered her third loss inside a week at the Tokyo Olympics.
Ash Barty and John Peers have lost a thrilling semi-final clash against the Russian pairing of Andrey Rublev and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova that went down a super tiebreak.
It means the Aussies are out of gold medal contention, but still have one match left to salvage bronze.
The match was locked at one set apiece, sending the two countries to a decider where they play first to 10 – needing to go clear by two points to win.
In a see-sawing affair Barty missed a golden chance to go up 10-9 when a simple put-away forehand at the net found the tape. She rebounded on serve to hold the point and bring things back level at 10-10.
The teams went point-for-point for much of the super tiebreak that went down to the wire, before Russia emerged victorious 13-11.
The Aussies won the first set 7-5 before Rublev and Pavlyuchenkova flipped the script in the second, taking it 6-4. They carried their momentum to the very end when it mattered most.
Her third loss of the week means Barty’s hopes of a maiden Olympic gold medal have been dashed.
After winning Wimbledon just a few weeks ago, the 25-year-old suffered a shock first round defeat to Sara Sorribes Tormo in the singles in Tokyo and lost in the quarter-finals of the doubles draw after teaming up with Storm Sanders.
Barty entered the women’s singles draw as perhaps Australia’s best chance of an individual gold since tennis was readmitted as an Olympic sport in the 1980s, but couldn’t get past world No. 48 Sorribes Tormo.
Australia hasn’t had an individual medallist since Molik snared bronze in Athens 2004 and our only gold was won by the Woodies in the doubles in 1996.