Ashleigh Barty
Ashleigh Barty is a retired professional tennis player from Queensland, Australia, celebrated for her remarkable achievements in the sport. Born on April 24, 1996, in Ipswich, Barty began playing tennis at the age of five and quickly showcased her talent on the international stage. She won the Wimbledon Girls' Singles Championship at just 15 years old and made significant strides in her career, including reaching the finals of three Grand Slam events in doubles by 2013. Barty's professional trajectory faced a pause in 2014 due to mental health struggles, leading her to explore cricket before returning to tennis in 2016.
Her comeback proved successful, culminating in three Grand Slam singles titles: the French Open in 2019, Wimbledon in 2021, and the Australian Open in 2022. Barty became the top-ranked women's player in the world, marking her place as only the second Australian woman to achieve this honor. Following her Australian Open victory, she announced her retirement from professional tennis. Off the court, Barty is recognized for her Indigenous heritage and has been a source of inspiration for many, including her admiration for fellow Indigenous player Evonne Goolagong Cawley. In her personal life, Barty married professional golfer Garry Kissick in 2022, and they welcomed their first child in 2023.
Ashleigh Barty
Athlete
- Born: April 24, 1996
- Place of Birth: Ipswich, Queensland
Significance: Queensland native Ashleigh Barty is a former professional tennis player. At fifteen, she won the 2011 Wimbledon Girls' Singles Championship. In 2013, she and her doubles partner reached the finals in three Grand Slam events. Barty later won her first Women's Tennis Association singles tournament in 2017 in Kuala Lumpur. She rose to become the top-ranked women's tennis player in the world and won three Grand Slam titles.
Background
Ashleigh Barty was born on 24 April 1996 in Ipswich, Queensland, just west of Brisbane. Her father, Robert, comes from the Ngarigo people of southeastern Australia. Her mother, Josie, is second-generation English. She has two older sisters, Ali and Sara.
At age five, Barty began learning tennis at the West Brisbane Tennis Centre under Coach Jim Joyce. She soon made her talent known. As an International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior player, she amassed a career singles record of 68 wins to 13 losses and went 40–12 in doubles, and Tennis Australia named her the Female Junior Athlete of the Year for four consecutive years: 2010 to 2013.
At age fifteen, Barty won the 2011 Wimbledon Girls' Singles Championship, defeating Irina Khromacheva in the final.
Professional Debut
Immediately afterward, Barty joined the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), with Coach Jason Stoltenberg guiding her throughout the tour. She debuted on the WTA circuit at the 2012 Brisbane International and landed a wild-card spot at the Australian Open. That same year she won her first ITF Pro Circuit singles title in Sydney and doubles title in Nottingham. Both Barty's singles and doubles game held promise. She and her doubles partner, fellow Australian Casey Dellacqua, reached the finals at three of four Grand Slam events—the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open—in 2013.
Nearly every month from January 2013 through August 2014, Barty competed in ITF and WTA tournaments at venues around the world. In September 2014, she announced that she was leaving the tour indefinitely. She later explained that she had been not only exhausted physically and mentally but felt homesick and depressed. Once home, she rested and coached some tennis and continued to play recreationally.
Hiatus
Shortly after Barty's departure from the WTA tour, the Australian Women's Cricket team invited her to share her experiences as an elite professional athlete. That presentation led to another invitation, this time for the novice cricketer to train with the semi-professional Queensland Fire women's cricket squad as it prepared for the Women's National Cricket League season. Thereafter, Barty—noted for her arm strength and accuracy—was offered a one-season contract with the Brisbane Heat to play in the inaugural Rebel Women's Big Bash League. During that season, she played moderately well and enjoyed the camaraderie of team sport.
A visit to Dellacqua, who was playing in Sydney, reminded Barty how much she loved professional tennis. Feeling reinvigorated from her break, Barty announced a return to professional singles tennis. She competed in several ITF Women's Circuit tournaments around Australia in February and March 2017. That June, her six wins at an ITF Women's Circuit grass-court tournament in Eastbourne, England, led to a wild-card entry at the WTA's Aegon Open Nottingham. In that tournament, she won five matches before falling in the quarterfinals to Karolina Pliskova, then ranked seventeenth worldwide.
Return to Tennis
In January 2017, Barty performed well enough at the Brisbane International and the Hobart International to land her a spot in a Grand Slam event: the Australian Open. There, she reached the third round, losing to Mona Barthel of Germany. When she entered her next major tournament, the Alya Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, Barty ranked 158, up from the low 600s at her return. At Kuala Lumpur, she defeated Japan's Nao Hibino to win her first WTA tournament. By March 2017, she was ranked 92nd.
Barty appeared briefly at the French Open in May before losing in straight sets to twelfth-seeded American Madison Keys. Despite that, her deep tournament performances in early to mid-2017 helped her climb in rank to 56 in the world by Wimbledon that July. In August 2017, Barty accomplished one of the biggest victories in her short career, defeating seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams of the United States in the second round of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki defeated her in the next round, Barty's performance against Williams drew attention ahead of the 2017 US Open in New York City, particularly since Barty began that Grand Slam as a mere qualifier, not a seeded participant.
By the time the US Open began in late August, Barty ranked 43rd in the world. She defeated Croatia's Ana Konjuh and Belarus's Aliaksandra Sasnovich before falling in straight sets to the eventual champion, American Sloane Stephens. By the end of that tournament, however, Barty ranked 37th.
Grand Slam Champion
In 2018, Barty and her partner, CoCo Vandeweghe, won the women’s doubles title at the US Open. During the 2019 tennis season, she advanced to her first Gram Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open. In June of that year, she won her first Grand Slam title with a victory over Markéta Vondroušová at the French Open.
Barty had been slowly climbing the women’s tennis rankings in 2019 and, with her victory in the French Open, she rose to 2nd overall in the world. After winning her next tournament, she reached the top spot in the rankings, only the second Australian woman to hold that position. Barty briefly dropped to number 2 in the rankings in September before reclaiming the top spot. She held that spot from September 2019 to April 2022, although the WTA rankings were suspended for several months in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In July 2021, Barty won her second Grand Slam title when she defeated Karolína Plíšková to take the Wimbledon championship. In January 2022, Barty wowed her homeland by capturing the Australian Open championship with a victory over Danielle Collins. She was the first Australian to win the Australian Open since 1978. After the victory, Barty announced her retirement from professional tennis. She finished her career with three Grand Slam titles, fifteen singles titles, and twelve doubles titles.
Impact
Ashleigh Barty reemerged from her hiatus to unexpectedly go deep in a number of key tournaments, including Grand Slam events. A diminutive WTA figure at only 163 centimetres tall, Barty counts arm strength (particularly her backhand), accuracy, and consistency among her top assets. Her Indigenous heritage invites comparisons to legendary Australian tennis player Evonne Goolagong Cawley, whom she admires greatly.
Personal Life
In 2022, Barty married professional golfer Garry Kissick. The couple had their first child, Hayden, in 2023.
Bibliography
Brantz, Stephanie. "Cricket Cameo May Prove Best Thing Ash Barty Ever Did for Tennis Career." ESPN, 12 Jan. 2017, www.espn.com/tennis/story/‗/id/18456901/cricket-cameo-prove-best-thing-ash-barty-ever-did-tennis-career. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Eccleshare, Charles. "Rising Stars of Tennis: Meet Ashleigh Barty—The Aussie Youngster Back on the WTA Tour after Season Playing Big Bash Cricket." The Telegraph, 21 Mar. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2017/03/21/rising-stars-tennis-meet-ashleigh-barty-aussie-youngster-back. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Garber, Greg. “World No.1, Three-Time Grand Slam Winner Ashleigh Barty Announces Retirement.” Women's Tennis Association, 22 Mar. 2022, www.wtatennis.com/news/2546898/world-no-1-three-time-grand-slam-winner-ashleigh-barty-announces-retirement. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Lutton, Phil. "Barty's Father Not the Typical Tennis Dad." The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 Dec. 2013, www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/bartys-father-not-the-typical-tennis-dad-20131231-304d3.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
"Player Profile: Ashleigh Barty." Tennis Australia, 2017, www.tennis.com.au/player-profiles/ashleigh-barty. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Rothenberg, Ben. "Ashleigh Barty, Onetime Tennis Prodigy, Eyes a Return to Wimbledon." The New York Times, 21 June 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/sports/tennis/ashleigh-barty-onetime-tennis-prodigy-eyes-a-return-to-wimbledon.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Woodyatt, Amy. “Former World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and Husband Announce Birth of Son.” CNN, 5 July 2022, www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/sport/former-world-no-1-ashleigh-barty-and-husband-announce-birth-of-son/index.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.