Her best years seemed to have just begun, but now it’s over. The popular Australian is stepping down at the peak. On a multi-talented sportswoman ending her tennis career for the second time.
Ashleigh Barty sat down in front of the camera in a plain dark blue shirt, a subtle smile curving her lips. “There’s no right or wrong way. It’s just my path,” said the tennis world number one before announcing her career end in complete surprise at just 25: “I know in my heart it’s right for me.”
The reigning Wimbledon and Australian Open champion, the one-time French Open title-holder, the dominant player on the tour abruptly leaves the big stage – and the tennis world is shocked. “It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud and yeah, it’s hard to say,” the emotional Barty admitted in the interview with her former doubles partner Casey Dellacqua. But she said she was “so happy” and “so ready” for the drastic step.
She retired from tennis once before – in 2015. Back then, one reason was probably too much pressure. She played professional cricket instead.
But Barty returned to the yellow felt ball and was recently hard to beat with her variable, powerful game. In 2019, she achieved her first major coup on the ashes of Paris and jumped to the top of the world rankings, which she has held for 114 weeks so far – only Steffi Graf (186), Serena Williams (186) and Martina Navratilova (156) have been at the top for longer at a stretch.
In the Corona heyday, when she eschewed travel, she actually just swapped the tennis racquet for the driver and won the amateur championship at Brookwater Golf Club near Brisbane outright. Barty is an incredible ball talent.
The athlete from Ipswich/Queensland then proved her exceptional status at Wimbledon last year before finally becoming an icon in her homeland with her first home victory since 1978 in Melbourne in January this year.
Retirement at its peak: Barty’s famous predecessors
Barty is now probably saying her final goodbyes at a stage of her career when she had the best prospects of more big wins.
It is a step that experts and observers had not seen coming. But Barty is by no means the first top athlete to turn her back on her sport at the peak of her creative powers. Think of the biathletes Magdalena Neuner and Laura Dahlmeier, who quit at 24 and 25 respectively. Or the American figure skater Tara Lipinski: World champion at 14, Olympic champion (1998) at 15, career over at 16.
Why did Barty, who is engaged to former Australian professional golfer Garry Kissick, decide to take this step? Surely also because she fulfilled her lifelong dream as an athlete: winning “her” Australian Open. Her statements indicate that working towards this triumph was incredibly exhausting for her mind and body. The expectations of the popular power woman were huge in her home country. Now she has delivered and the great pressure, the tension fell off her.
Barty: Am “absolutely spent “
However, she no longer feels that “physical drive, the emotional desire and somehow everything you need to challenge yourself at the highest level” inside her. She just knows she’s “absolutely spent,” Barty said, “I know I had nothing left to give physically, and that’s success for me.”
She knows “there will be people who don’t understand” but is sure “the time is right” to step down and “pursue other dreams”. Success is knowing “that I have given absolutely everything”. She was “fulfilled”, and “I know how much work it takes to get the best out of yourself”.
The smashing forehand cross to win the Australian Open title thus remains the last taste of Ash Barty’s excellent game. She leaves top tennis with a smile – and her sport loses an outstanding athlete and ambassador.