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A few weeks after her triumph at the Australian Open this year, Ashleigh Barty surprised the tennis world with a shock announcement. In fact, the three-time Grand Slam winner who was still number one in the world announced her retirement from professional tennis.
She came back on the reasons of this precipitated retirement to the journalists of Courier Mail. Although Barty was only 25 years old, she had lost all motivation after her victory at Wimbledon in 2021. She said that she had the trigger on her loss of motivation during a fitness session that she simply gave up. She had never done that before – and knew the out-of-character move was a “red flag.”
Next week, Ashleigh Barty will publish a book called My Dream Time in which she finally provides answers, as only she can, to the flood of questions that arose when she announced her retirement from tennis in March 2022.
“Winning Wimbledon was the one thing I wanted my entire career,” Barty told News Corp. But after that achievement in June 2021, the fire went out on the inside.
“But incredibly, even though she had decided she was ready to quit and had begun discussing it with her tight team – none of whom let on a single word, which is unusual in the sports world – Barty still won the Australian Open in 2022, becoming the first Australian woman to do so in 44 years.
And if you’re wondering if there might be a comeback, Barty – who married her sweetheart Garry Kissick after retirement – said, “The last six or seven months of my life have been everything I’ve ever wanted. I love the way my life is right now. I won’t even be away from the tennis world…but I just won’t be there for me.”
