Fresh off the back of her Australian Open win, Australian tennis legend Ash Barty has announced that she will be retiring from the game.
Breaking the news on Instagram in a video interview with her friend Casey Dellacqua, Barty said that she is “absolutely spent” and doesn’t have the drive to keep going.
“I don’t have the physical drive, the emotional want and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top level anymore,” she said.
“I just know I am absolutely spent. I know physically I have nothing more to give and that for me is success. I’ve given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis and I’m really happy with that.
“I know that people may not understand it and I’m OK with that”.
It’s fair to say the announcement has caught the sporting world off guard. Barty is just 25 years old and recently came out on top in the women’s singles at the Australian Open in Melbourne in January.
She has won three Grand Slam titles during her career – the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon – and had been expected to play at Indian Wells in California.
Barty announced that she would be pulling out of that event at the start of this month, however, there was no indication that she wouldn’t continue with the sport at all.
When asked by Dellacqua why she had chosen now to finish up in tennis, she said that it’s been something she’d been thinking about for a long time and that the AO win was the “perfect way” to end her run.
“Wimbledon last year changed a lot for me as a person and for me as an athlete when you work so hard your whole life for one goal, and I’ve been able to share that with so many incredible people.
“But to be able to win Wimbledon, which was my dream — the one, true dream I wanted in tennis — that really changed my perspective. I just had that gut feeling after Wimbledon and had spoken to my team quite a lot about it.
“There was just a little part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled. And then came the challenge of the Australian Open.
“That for me just feels like the perfect way — my perfect way — to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been.
“As a person, this is what I want. I want to chase after some other dreams that I’ve always wanted to do, and always had that really healthy balance, but I’m really, really excited.”
Barty has quit tennis before to pursue a career in cricket, however, this was before she achieved major success in the game. She had been looking to play in the Billie Jean King Cup in April but will now no longer be participating.
It remains to be seen just want those dreams are that she is leaving the sport to pursue, but if her tennis game is anything to go by, we’re sure they will be equally legendary.
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