Grand Slam singles winner, Grand slam doubles winner, and a professional cricketer. These are not different athletes, but just a single person – former WTS no. 1 ranked Ashleigh Barty from Australia.
Only a handful of sportspersons have established themselves in more than one sport, and the Wimbledon winner is one of them.
Barty is a three-time Grand Slam singles champion, and a reigning champion at the Wimbledon and the Australian Open. She is also a Grand Slam doubles champion.
The Aussie has an impeccable record of winning 15 singles titles and 12 doubles titles on the WTA tour.
In 2014, Barty decided to take an indefinite break from tennis stating that, “it was too much too quickly for me as I've been travelling from quite a young age. I wanted to experience life as a normal teenage girl and have some normal experiences.”
Barty felt like playing a team sport in order to have a change from playing an individual sport. She turned towards cricket in the process.
Andy Richards, Queensland fire’s coach was intrigued by her batting. Barty started to play cricket every day and had intense practice sessions. As a result, she was selected for a local team that played in Brisbane's Women's Premier Cricket Twenty20 league.
After performing well, she signed with Brisbane Heat for the inaugural season of the Women’s Big Bash League. She remained a regular member of the team thereafter.
After the Big Bash League, Ash announced her return to professional tennis and there has been no looking back ever since.
Barty’s Big Bash coach Andy Richards said later that playing a team sport gave her a sense of belonging, and made her a better person.
Dave Richard, Barty’s former coach at Queensland shared an incident once saying, “She was watching a golf tournament on TV, She turned around and said: ‘I reckon I could have a go at that.’ She went out the following day and shot a round of 81. Eighty-one! That was the first time she had ever picked up a set of clubs. It gives you an idea of the kind of talent we were dealing with.”
Barty announced her retirement from tennis in March 2022. This decision came two months after her Australian Open title. She was ranked no. 1 in singles at the time of retirement.
Barty ranked No.1 for 114 consecutive weeks. It is the fourth-longest streak in Women’s Tennis Association history (not including when rankings were frozen between March and August 2020 due to Covid-19).
