Ashleigh Barty’s career has always been a tad atypical. The Australian scored highly on the junior circuit, but at the end of 2014 she already stopped playing tennis. She no longer enjoyed it and started playing cricket instead.
However, in 2016 she returned and started a steep rise in the WTA ranking. She won her first title on the WTA circuit in 2017, with 14 more to come. In total, she was at the top of the standings for 121 weeks.
But even during her enormously successful years, Barty made no secret of the fact that she suffered from homesickness, for example. During the corona pandemic, she didn’t go back to the track as soon as she could, but she also took a year-long break to be with her family.
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So now she is finally putting a stop to it, at the age of 25 and with her triumph at the Australian Open still fresh in her memory. “Winning Wimbledon was my biggest dream,” she says. “I managed to do that last summer. After that I already toyed with the idea of stopping, but after winning the Australian Open in my own country, it feels completely right.”
“It’s been an incredible adventure, but now I want to chase other dreams. I know how much work it takes to be at the top and I don’t have that in me anymore. I can’t do that anymore, physically and emotionally. On, I’ve given everything to this sport and have nothing left.”
“I’m happy with this choice. It’s time to be Ashleigh Barty the human being, not the tennis player. And the dreams I have now are not about traveling the world. I don’t want to be away from home and my family anymore .”
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