We may all be confused that other tennis stars of the last decade, such as the Williams sisters, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic, seem to be playing indefinitely. Many other tennis players and athletes from other industries, on the other hand, end up prematurely or at the peak of their careers, which is exactly the case with Barty. In her step, it is therefore difficult to find a generalization or perhaps even a new trend.
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Anyone who has followed the careers of an Australian with Aboriginal roots in detail cannot be shocked. On the contrary, it is as if everything, including the end of her career, fits together.
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Maybe the most important thing right at the beginning. Not everyone knows that the famous Australian started her professional career as a child. In just 14 years, in April 2010, 12 years ago.
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And a lot has happened in her career over the years. It took 7 years before she broke into the world. In 2017, she advanced to the 3rd round at the Australian Open and US Open for the first time. A year later, she was at the US Open in the 4th round and in 2019 she won the first grand slam – the French Open. So count on us – nine years of hard work to climb to the absolute top. A year later, she added a semifinal to the Australian Open, dominated Wimbledon in 2021, and culminated this year with a iconic victory in Melbourne.
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I totally understand her. When you chase for something that is so hard to achieve for so long, and in the end it succeeds, you feel exhausted. You feel empty. After winning Wimbledon and then the Australian Open, she felt she could not withstand the amount of training and intensity she needed to stay on top. So I completely understand this decision.
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“Whoever starts early will end soon.” It sounds like the old truth of our grandmothers, but this is very often the case in sports. It wears out. And we don’t think mental fatigue is less important than body condition. Barty did not suffer any injuries, but her soul is not made of iron. “I no longer have physical motivation, emotional desire,” the 25-year-old player commented on her retirement. “All I know is that I’m completely exhausted.”
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Her time at the top may have been short on tennis habits. But Ashleigh Barty is no “robocop,” a woman from whom all suffering is reflected like a tennis wall. She hadn’t hidden the fact that she sometimes suffers from depression and homesickness. She is very fixated on her family, her home in Brookwater, Queensland, where she built a house not far from her parents.
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According to the BBC, its decision could also be accelerated by the covidu-19 pandemic, with forced life in bubbles and difficulties in returning home to Australia. That’s exactly what she doesn’t like.
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Tennis is a specific discipline. He doesn’t have as long breaks as athletics, skiing or cycling. The tennis players seem to be riding in the team all the time. The best ones have the Australian Open in January, Paris in the spring, then Wimbledon, the US Open at the end of the summer, as well as the Champions’ Tournament.
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Also note that Barty has taken a break from professional tennis before. From September 2014 to February 2016, she was quite successful in semi-professional cricket and even fishing. “More than anything, I needed some time to refresh myself mentally. Tennis became a bit of a chore for me, I didn’t enjoy it the way I wanted it to, “she explained at the time.
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In addition, Barty did an extraordinary thing. The victory at Wimbledon was the absolute culmination, followed by control of Melbourne. Let’s not forget that there was a lot of pressure on her. She became the first domestic Australian Open winner in 44 years. The last missing grand slam – the US Open – no longer had to be such a motivation.
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If you take a closer look at the careers of the world’s tennis players, you will see that Barty is no exception. Her retired player, Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, has now described her situation very well. Like the Australian, she won Wimbledon (2013) and then ended up playing tennis a few months later. She was 28 years old. “I totally understand her. When you chase for something that is so hard to achieve for so long, and in the end it succeeds, you feel exhausted. You feel empty. After winning Wimbledon and then the Australian Open, she felt she could not withstand the amount of training and intensity she needed to stay on top. So I completely understand this decision, “Bartoli argued.
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More than anything, I needed some time to refresh myself mentally. Tennis became a bit of a chore for me, I didn’t enjoy it the way I wanted it to.
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Belgian Justine Henin also finished tennis as the world number one at the age of 25. After 16 months, she announced that she was returning, but the following year she left for the second time and definitively.
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Another famous Belgian, Kim Clijsters, even finished tennis at the age of 23 (2007). But then she returned in two years and after her comeback won three of the four grand slam singles titles.
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Let’s just look at similar cases from other sports – for example, two famous German biathletes of recent times. Magdalena Neunerová won practically everything she could, and then she finished “prematurely” at the age of 25 (2012). She started planning her family, but most of all she wanted to change the stereotype of sports training and touring biathlon centers. “I have the motivation to try new things,” she said then. Her successor, Laura Dahlmeier, did it like a photocopier. She won basically everything and then in 25 years (2019) she finished. Both just like Barty.
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Finally, the last two arguments in the puzzle, which suggests why it’s not so surprising that a player like Barty ends her career.
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First, last November, she got engaged to a longtime friend, Australian professional golfer Garry Kissick. Secondly, she earned almost $ 24 million (over half a billion crowns) in prize money alone. He has someone to live on and tennis is no longer the key.
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