The party's over as 'spent' Barty retires

BRISBANE • At the top of her sport, Ashleigh Barty is retiring from tennis.

In a stunning move, the top-ranked women's player - who won her home Grand Slam, the Australian Open, in January - yesterday announced that she was leaving tennis for other pursuits.

"It was hard," she said of her decision.

"But it's right and I know, and that brought me a lot of comfort knowing that this is right for me. But I'm very excited."

Barty, who turns 26 next month, posted a video on Instagram announcing her decision through a conversation with compatriot and retired tennis player Casey Dellacqua, one of her closest friends and a former doubles partner.

"I'm so grateful to everything that tennis has given me - it's given me all of my dreams, plus more - but I know that the time is right now for me to step away and chase other dreams and to put the rackets down," she said.

"I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself... I don't have that in me any more.

"I don't have the physical drive, the emotional want and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top level any more.

"I'm spent."

This was the third time that Barty had stepped away from professional tennis but the first time she had confirmed her retirement.

In 2014, at age 17, when she was already one of the top doubles players, she took an indefinite break from the WTA Tour.

She was depressed and weary of the travel and the pressures generated by early success.

During that 17-month hiatus, she played professional cricket, but with encouragement from Dellacqua, she returned to tennis in early 2016 reinvigorated and began her climb to the summit under the guidance of a new coach, Craig Tyzzer.

Barty also took an 11-month break from the Tour at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, remaining in Australia instead of playing abroad even after the five-month hiatus ended in August 2020.

But her surprise retirement announcement, coming with the Tour back in full swing and shortly after her triumph in Melbourne, is clearly a decision she has considered at length and made from a position of strength.

"There was a perspective shift in me in the second phase of my career that my happiness wasn't dependent on the results and success for me is knowing that I've given absolutely everything I can," Barty told Dellacqua.

"I'm fulfilled. I'm happy."

She added that realising her "one true dream" by winning Wimbledon last year had changed her views and her other dreams did not necessarily involve constant travel and being away from her home and family.

On the sport she is leaving behind, the 2019 French Open champion said: "It's been a massive part of my life, but I think it's important that I get to enjoy the next part of my life as Ash Barty the person, not Ash Barty the athlete."

She bows out with almost US$24 million (S$32.6 million) in career prize money and as a national hero after becoming the first Australian woman since Chris O'Neil in 1978 to triumph at Melbourne Park.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison thanked Barty, who is of Aboriginal descent, for "inspiring a generation of young people and particularly a generation of young Indigenous people" in Australia.

"You are all class. I'm sure anything you turn your hand to is going to be a great success," he said.

Women's tennis will have a new world No. 1 in Poland's Iga Swiatek, the 2020 Roland Garros champion, but there is now a huge hole at the top of the sport.

Since Serena Williams stepped away to give birth in 2017, Barty and Japan's Naomi Osaka have been her two most likely successors as the most dominant women's tennis player.

But four-time Slam winner Osaka has been on the slide since revealing her mental health struggles last year, falling to No. 77.

Of the current top 10 players, only Swiatek and world No. 9 Garbine Muguruza (the last of her two Majors came in 2017) have tasted Slam success.

REUTERS, NYTIMES