John McEnroe challenges Ash Barty to find a way to use the crowd

Ash Barty nailed it in her press conference when she said she was only two points away from winning her semi final in straight sets.

Such are the fine margins of top level sport that you need to find an edge wherever one presents itself.

Strangely, the one edge that should have been guaranteed the popular Australian never arrived.

That edge? The crowd.

Despite witnessing for the first time in 36 years a local hope in a women's semi final, the crowd was strangely subdued.

This writer's Wide World of Sports colleague Tim Elbra nailed it in a tweet that said it sounded like they were watching a seniors golf tournament.

There were several opportunities for the crowd to get behind Barty and roar her into the final; when she had set points in the tiebreaker, when she started to look like running away with the second set, and when she served for it at 5-4.

But even when her serve was broken at that point, it almost seemed as though her sense of disappointment and resignation dulled the crowd rather than rousing it to lift her again.

This narrative can of course be flipped. While the crowd was flat, potentially nervous and probably just trying to stay cool, Barty could have helped herself by engaging them and giving them something to feed off.

It's a point that Nine's John McEnroe raised after the match, suggesting that Barty think about how she can use her home crowd to her advantage when she returns for her next campaign.

"I would recommend, this is just as an outsider looking in, figuring out a way to use the crowd to her advantage, which I don't think she did," McEnroe said.

"I mean I know it was hot, so people were drooping a little bit, but somehow she's got to show a little bit more outward … it's not that she's not trying, I mean obviously she is, but I think that people respond to that energy."

The young American who took her out, Sofia Kenin, has it in spades.

Every time she won a crucial point Kenin was in Barty's face with a loud 'C'mooooon!'

She's feisty. She wants her opponent to feel her presence and she wants the crowd to be engaged.

Lleyton Hewitt wasn't everyone's cup of tea but his battler spirit always resonated with his home crowds and when he was in the heat of battle the atmosphere was always electric.

While Hewitt divided the public for much of his career, Barty is universally loved in Australia.

Give the crowd any excuse to get behind her and that chance will be taken.

Right now that crowd engagement doesn't seem to be part of Barty's on court personality and given she's the world No.1 and the French Open champion it's difficult to make the case that her more inward approach to facing an opponent is hurting her.

But when she next makes an Australian Open semi final, as she no doubt will again, let's hope she takes McEnroe's advice and finds a way to get the crowd out of their seats.

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