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Australian Barty played with now-retired German
Julia Georges in this year's tournament in Melbourne where they
lost in the second round to eventual winners Timea Babos and
Kristina Mladenovic.
Crowd favourite Barty's singles run in this year's tournament
ended in the semi-finals with a defeat to American Sofia Kenin,
who went on to win her maiden Grand Slam title in Melbourne.
World number four Kenin has changed her doubles partner for the
2021 edition of the Australian Open and will play with Swiss
world number 12 Belinda Bencic.
Hsieh Su-Wei and Barbora Strycova, who lost the 2020 final, are
the top-ranked women's duo for the Grand Slam, which has been
delayed by three weeks due to Australia's strict border rules to
curb the spread of COVID-19 and will start on Feb. 8.
American Rajeev Ram and Joe Sailsbury of Britain will return to
defend their men's doubles title with the field headlined by the
top-ranked Colombian duo of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert
Farah, who won the Wimbledon and U.S. Open trophies last year.
Britain's seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion Jamie Murray
has also reunited with his former partner Bruno Soares after
splitting last year and will look to replicate their 2016
success when they won the Australian and U.S. Open titles.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; editing by Kim Coghill)
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