There aren't many sportspeople who have taken a break in their professional career, dabbled in other sports and then come back to their original choice and lived to tell the tale. Ashleigh Barty is one such rarity.
She was the junior champion at Wimbledon a decade ago, before she took a break from tennis in 2014 citing lack of interest in the sport and burnout.
After leaving tennis, she decided to join the Western Suburbs in the Brisbane Women's Premier Cricket competition. In her debut T20 match itself,she scored an unbeaten 63 and took 2 for 13 in four overs, despite no competitive experience.This is quite impressive and safe to say everyone thought she could really give a shot to it. Her performance impressed Brisbane Heatand in 2015, she was signed up for the inaugural Women's Big Bash League season. Her Cricket career never really took off. After such a bright debut , it was a bit shocking. She could manage only 68 runs in 9 matches at the WBBL. She also turned up for Queensland women in the Women's National Cricket League. She also coached the U-15 Cricket Australia XI.
After spending her time in the cricket field , she was back in tennis golf in 2016. From being outside the top 200 in January, 2017 she finished inside the top 20 and won the Malaysian Open,her first singles event title. She has 11 singles event titles and 11 doubles titles on the WTA including a 2019 French Open as well as Grand Slam Doubles title at the 2018 US Open.She entered the Wimbledon championship 2021 as the World number 1 and she justified herrank throughout the tournament. She was calm and cool and was clinical with her service. Reaching the finals of any tournament is not that easy but this time she had easy fixtures enroute to the finals before facing the seeded Angelique Kerber. She won the first set with ease and with total control of the game. In the second set, Kerber was trying to get some momentum. She was looking strong for the first four games but Bartey came back strong and won the game. She was one step away from fulfilling her dream and the Centre Court applauded her. It was the final encounter and Bartey jumped out to a fast start to grab hold of momentum early on in the match dominating the first set with 12 winners and2 aces. In the second set, Pliskova fought back. She forced a tiebreaker and rebounded with a much more productive service game. The Third set was similar to the first in Bartey dominating. She jumped out to a 3-0 lead and held her serve the rest of the way to win the match 6-3,6-7,6-3.
This was her second Grand Slam and first Wimbledon championship. With this she became the first Aussie woman to win the Wimbledon senior singles title in more than four decades. It was a joy to watch her play throughout the tournament.
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