At the top of her sport, Ashleigh Barty is retiring from tennis.

In a stunning move, Barty, the world No.1 women’s player who won her country’s major tournament, the Australian Open, in January, announced on Wednesday that she was leaving tennis for other pursuits.

“It was hard,” she said of her decision. “But it’s right and I know, and that brought me a lot of comfort knowing that this is right for me. But I’m very excited.”

Barty, who turns 26 next month, posted a video to Instagram announcing her decision through a conversation with her compatriot Casey Dellacqua, a retired player, one of her closest friends and her former doubles partner. Barty said she would also hold a news conference.

“I’m so grateful to everything that tennis has given me — it’s given me all of my dreams, plus more — but I know that the time is right now for me to step away and chase other dreams and to put the racquets down.”

It was the third time that Barty had stepped away from professional tennis but the first time that she had announced her retirement. In 2014, at age 17, when she already was one of the top doubles players, she took an indefinite break from the tour. She was depressed and weary of the travel and the pressures generated by early success.

During that 17-month hiatus, she played professional cricket, but with encouragement from Dellacqua she returned to tennis in early 2016 reinvigorated and began her climb to the summit under the guidance of a new coach, Craig Tyzzer, an experienced and unflappable Australian.

Barty also took an 11-month break from the tour at the onset of the pandemic, remaining in Australia instead of travelling to tournaments abroad even after the tour’s five-month hiatus ended in August 2020.

But her surprise retirement announcement, coming with the tour back in full swing and shortly after her triumph in Melbourne, is clearly a decision that she has considered at length and made from a position of strength.

“There was a perspective shift in me in the second phase of my career that my happiness wasn’t dependent on the results and success for me is knowing that I’ve given absolutely everything, everything I can,” Barty told Dellacqua. “I’m fulfilled. I’m happy.”

“I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself,” she said to Dellacqua in the video posted on Wednesday, “It’s just I don’t have that in me anymore. I don’t have the physical drive, the emotional want and kind of everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top level anymore and I think I just know that I’m absolutely, I am spent.”

Barty has spent a total of 119 weeks at No. 1, placing her seventh on the career list. If Barty sticks with her decision, she will be the first player to win a grand slam singles title in her final match since Pete Sampras, the American star who did not play on tour again after winning the 2002 US Open at age 31.

For now, and perhaps for eternity, Barty has finished her career with $23.8 million in prize money and 15 career singles titles, including three at grand slam tournaments. She won the French Open in 2019, Wimbledon in 2021 and the Australian Open this year, meaning that she won major singles titles on all three of tennis’ primary surfaces: clay, grass and hardcourt.

Barty said that winning Wimbledon, long considered the ultimate achievement for Australian tennis players with their country’s close ties to Britain, shifted her outlook on her career. Winning the Australian Open gave her a storybook ending.

“To be able to win Wimbledon, which was my dream, my one true dream that I wanted in tennis, that really changed my perspective,” she said, adding, “And there was just a little part of me that

wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled. And then came the challenges of the Australian Open and I think that for me just feels like the most perfect way. My perfect way to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been.”

Her sudden retirement is clearly a blow to the sport. She is enormously popular in Australia with her unpretentious personality and, as a prominent figure of indigenous Australian descent, she has also broadened the sport’s appeal at home and abroad.

“I’ve given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis and I’m really happy with that. And for me that is my success. And I know that people may not understand it and that’s OK. I’m OK with that. Because I know that for me, Ash Barty the person has so many dreams that she wants to chase after that don’t necessarily involve travelling the world, being away from my family, being away from my home, which is where I’ve always wanted to be.”

“And I’ll never ever, ever stop loving tennis,” she said. “It’ll always be a massive part of my life. But now I think it’s important that I get to enjoy the next phase of my life as Ash Barty the person and not Ash Barty the athlete.”

New York Times News Service