Retiring at just 25, Ash Barty says she is ready to chase new dreams | Tennis News – Times of India

Ashleigh Barty encapsulated the best of tennis. The sport’s most flattering adjective. In a one-dimensional era, where power has purchase and flair is only loose change, Barty – with more variety in her game than colours in an artist’s palette was its sterling centre-piece.
Her signature sliced backhand opened the court and shut out opponents, the forehand, a shot that hollered precision, rivalled only her serve that cut through the air with the decisive quality of a switchblade.

Barty, whose current reign at No. 1 stands at 114 consecutive weeks, on Wednesday announced that it was time to put away her Head Graphene sticks. She’s just 25 years of age. In an emotional video on Instagram, Barty – the owner of a piercing stare and a firm handshake -said she was ready to chase new dreams.

The amiable Aussie is the first player to retire from the sport while at the top of the singles ranking since Belgium’s Justine Henin in 2008, who was also weeks shy of her 26th birthday at the time. Henin, however, returned to the Tour two years later.
Barty, 5 ft 5′ in her tennis shoes, is a three-time major champion. She pointed at the high points of her career, coming as they did in the second phase of a stretch that wasn’t without interruptions, as pivotal. Notably last year’s Wimbledon crown, which at the time she described as a magical moment even if the experience didn’t complete her in a fashion she expected it too.

“Wimbledon was the one true dream I had in tennis,” Barty outlined in the video post. “There was a little part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled. There was a perspective shift in me in this second phase of my career that my happiness wasn’t dependent on results.”
This is not the first time that Barty has walked away from tennis. She took an indefinite break from the sport in 2014 at the age of 17. She took up cricket, enjoying her time in a team environment, far removed from the lonely dial of an individual discipline.

Pressure and Barty are old mates, they’ve traded blows and tangoed and when the Aussie returned to the sport in the summer of 2016, ranked 9999 in the world, she punched heavy and hard to finish at No. 1. A six-year odyssey, 81 tournaments, three Grand Slam titles. Some would’ve called it a beginning.
“I know how much work it takes to get the best out of yourself, I don’t have that in me anymore. I don’t have the physical drive, the emotional want and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top of the game,” Barty said before adding, “I’m spent.”

While the timing of Barty’s decision isn’t ideal for the women’s game – with Serena Williams at 40 at the end of her career and Naomi Osaka battling issues of her own, the top of the women’s game wears a vacant look – that shouldn’t be the Aussie’s burden.

As Casey Dellacqua, her former doubles partner and close friend, who she was in conversation with in the six-minute video pointed out, Barty is in control of her narrative. “You’ve always made decisions that are right for you,” Dellacqua said.

After Barty’s run on the lawns of the All England Club came the challenge of the home Slam – the Australian Open. She closed out the Melbourne Park final with a forehand winner.

With that victory, the 25-year-old crossed her own finish line. The chalk of a rectangle. There are other dreams to chase, she said, more Ash Barty chapters to be written. Just not in tennis.