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Sporting Life: Barty's win gives long-suffering Australia release and relief
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Australia's Ashleigh Barty enjoyed a well-deserved tipple at a press conference after winning the Australian Open in Melbourne on Jan 29, 2022.
PHOTO: AFP
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MELBOURNE - The yell after match point was long, loud and out of character. It was emotional, primaeval and beautiful. It was a mix of elation, desire, anxiety, validation and came from a place only athletes know. The yell was so dramatic and so unusual that even Ash Barty said later, sweetly and a bit abashed: "That's not me."
In press conferences and on the court she's so reserved, so normal, so reluctant to draw attention to herself that you can forget that there's a desperate, devoted, competitive beast inside her. The yell briefly showed that Barty to us.
