The tennis world just got tilted sideways after the shocking news came rolling in late Tuesday night that the number 1 ranked player Ash Barty announced her retirement at the age of 25. Via a social media post, Barty declared her intention to retire immediately. The Australian born player had been the most dominant player on the WTA Tour since her French Open title in 2019 that propelled her to the number one ranking for the first time in her career. Barty won the year-end WTA Tour Finals in 2019 as well. Since then, she won two more majors including a home major at the 2022 Australian Open. Barty explained that she felt by winning Wimbledon last year, winning a major in her native Australia, and having been on top of the world rankings was everything she could have asked for and more, and that she didn’t feel like there was anything else to contribute to the game of tennis. She also cited the stress and pressure of being world number one became too much and that she no longer enjoyed what she was doing.
Ash Barty made her professional debut in 2010. She made her debut at a major tournament when she qualified for the main draw at the 2012 Australian Open. She also qualified for the Wimbledon and French Open main draws in 2012. Barty won her first WTA title in a doubles match at the 2013 Birmingham Classic. She won her second WTA doubles title at the 2014 Internationaux de Strasbourg. Barty decided to step away from tennis after the 2014 U.S. Open to pursue a potential career in cricket.
Ash Barty returned to tennis in 2016. She won her first WTA singles title at the 2017 Malaysian Open. She finished that year inside the top 20 in the world rankings. She won her second singles title at the 2018 Nottingham Open. Barty finished 2018 with a singles title at the year-end WTA Elite Trophy Tournament. It was her third career singles title. In 2019, Barty won the year-end WTA Tour Finals title as part of an amazing season that saw her soar to the top of the WTA rankings.
Ash Barty won the first of her three major singles titles at the 2019 French Open. She defeated Marketa Vondrousova in straight sets. She won her second major at the 2021 Wimbledon. She needed three sets to dispatch Karolina Pliskova in the final. Barty’s victory at Wimbledon marked the first time an Australian woman won at Wimbledon since Evonne Goolagong Cawley did it in 1980. Barty won her third and final major at the 2022 Australian Open. She beat Danielle Collins in straight sets in the final. She also became the first Australian woman to win her home major since Chris O’Neil did it in 1978. Barty’s best finish at the U.S. Open was the 4th round in 2018 and 2019.
Ash Barty has also represented Australia in international competitions. She was part of the Australian team at the 2019 Fed Cup. They lost to France in the final. She was also part of the 2013 and 2019 Hopman Cup, but the Australian team did not make it past the round robin stage. Ash Barty is an Olympic Bronze Medalist having won the Mixed Doubles Bronze at the Summer Olympics in 2021.
Ash Barty finished her career with 15 singles titles, three major singles titles, and 305 match victories. She also has one major doubles title, 12 doubles titles, and 200 doubles match wins.
As we move forwards, there are two glaring questions attached to Barty’s retirement from professional tennis. The first is, what will Barty do post-retirement? Well, that’s up to her. She could go into broadcasting, coaching/mentoring younger players but that is unlikely, or she could pursue a completely different career/hobby. The latter option on this list is most likely to happen.
The next question is, what will happen to the rest of the world rankings now that she is retired? This one is pretty straight forward. Barty’s points will eventually fall off and the rest of the players will compete for those points, so players will not automatically move up a spot by default of Barty retiring. The two players directly behind her are world number 2 Iga Swiatek of Poland and World number 3 Maria Sakkari of Greece. Swiatek has five career singles titles including one major and she recently beat Sakkari in the Indian Wells final. Sakkari has one singles title in her career. The new World Number 1 will likely be Swiatek and Number 2 would be Sakkari.
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