Barty season
Tennis tragics, in our most febrile fantasies, could not have imagined the year Ash Barty put together in 2019. Neither could she. “It feels like a year that just hasn’t stopped,” said the gifted, diminutive 23-year-old. “At times it felt like a circus going around and around.”
French Open champion. World No.1. A tennis-record purse as WTA Finals winner. Leading Australia into its first Fed Cup final for 26 years ... The delightfully unspoiled Queenslander unfurled a year of wonders.
More than the trophies and records, Barty was a back-to-the-future, feel-good story for Australian sport; a champion who unites rather than polarises, much like her fellow beloved Queenslander Pat Rafter. Uncontroversial and unaffected, Barty personifies what we love about sport: grace in victory and defeat; sportsmanship before in-your-face fist-pumps; a love for the game rather than the trappings of celebrity.
So low-key is Barty that when Serena Williams was asked about the new No.1 at Wimbledon, she had no idea it was the Aussie, before praising “the sweetest, cutest girl on tour. I don’t know anyone who has anything negative to say about her.”
Barty ascended to No.1 in June, exactly three years after she re-joined the pro tour, ranked No.623. Her 21-month break from the game after the 2014 US Open, during which she famously swapped tennis racquet for cricket bat, continues to fascinate. Touched by the depression that has also afflicted her father, Barty at 18 seemed lost to the game.
In hindsight her time-out looks like a genius career move, now heartily recommended for the erratic Nick Kyrgios. “It’s hard for me to tell anyone they need
