Ashleigh Barty: All tennis players could learn from Australian tennis star

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She may have taken the sporting world by surprise this week, but all tennis players could learn from Ashleigh Barty.

No, not necessarily in suddenly announcing their retirement – but in reminding us all that life has other dimensions as well as media fame and the relentless pursuit of glittering prizes. Ash Barty has always had a mind of her own, and the capacity to make her own decisions. She has been an absolute original.

Most tennis players, male and female, are products of a pretty intensive talent factory: academies and colleges, leading on to a relentless circuit of training, travel and tournaments. It isn’t all glamour, of course, and many keen and gifted players remain just below those top 50 world ranking, with more time spent in airport departure lounges than on the big show courts.

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Barty’s route to the top was different: a very grounded family background and an approach to the sport which kept her personal life, her body and her mental health always in careful balance. At age 18 she actually took two years out from the sport, before returning five years ago to take tennis by storm. She has modesty, grace and sincerity – and as a role model she remains formidable.

Ashleigh did play at Eastbourne, in 2017 as she returned from her two-year furlough, reaching the doubles final. She was scheduled as top seed for the 2019 tournament, but in the week before gracing the Devonshire Park courts, she picked up an injury in the process of winning the Birmingham singles title. And with Wimbledon looming, she had a tough call to make.

Now, short-notice withdrawals are not unusual, especially in the fairly short and tight-packed grass court season. But they usually come via a player’s support staff, or a brief announcement from the WTA media office. Not this one: on the Monday morning, Ashleigh loaded her whole team on to the Barty Bus and took the long haul down from Birmingham. Then, at a hastily called and very informal press conference in the Congress Theatre foyer, she broke the news in person to the assembled tennis hacks.

“Guys, I’m gutted. Eastbourne was always in my plans and your town is a breath of sea air second only to Melbourne!” No, I didn’t invent that quote, and from an Aussie, it’s quite a compliment! But the Barty body evidently needed more intensive therapy than just a stroll on the seafront, and – ever honest and ever gracious – she and her team had to depart for SW19.

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This year, after a 2020 lockdown and a quite restricted tournament in 2021, the tennis should be back with all its bustling activity and high-class action. The Rothesay International opens on Saturday 18th June and very many of the world’s elite will be on court. Sadly but understandably, they won’t include that modest, genial and disarmingly honest lady from Down Under.

Ashleigh BartyAshleigh Barty
Ashleigh Barty

She has bowed out on a high – the 2022 Australian Open title in January – and she will be missed. What next? Ash would make an interesting but improbable pundit. She is a Test-standard cricketer and, as fellow tennis champion Simona Halep reminded us this week, a scratch golfer. If Ash had stayed in Sussex just a little longer, she would doubtless have conquered the local stoolball leagues.

Mind you, both Australia and New Zealand have an impressive tradition of producing plain-speaking, down to earth politicians. If Jacinda Ardern can run New Zealand in between running a busy household and picking the kids up from school, perhaps there is a slot for a former tennis champion to take up the highest office in Canberra…

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