Ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and the second Australian WTA singles No.1 ever, Ashleigh Barty is a star tennis player, discovered at a very young age as a child prodigy.
Born on 24 April 1996 to Josie and Robert Barty in Australia, Ashleigh was the youngest of three sisters. She grew up in Springfield, a suburb of Ipswich in Queensland and attended Woodcrest State College throughout her upbringing.
At four, because of her excellent hand-eye coordination and high level of focus, Barty started her first ever formal training in tennis, working with her longtime junior coach Jim Joyce at the West Brisbane Tennis Centre. Besides tennis, she also had an interest in netball as a child, but didn't pursue it for longer. By the time she was nine, she was practising tennis against boys who were six years older and at the age of 12, she was playing against male adults.
Ashleigh's successful career in tennis started only at the age of 14, in an ITF (International Tennis Federation) event in her hometown. She reached a career-high ITF world junior ranking of No. 2, having excelled at both singles and doubles.
Barty played her first junior Grand Slam event in 2011 at the Australian Open, where she lost her opening match. But in the coming months, she made a fierce comeback, by winning both the singles and doubles events at two high-level Grade 1 events. After a second round loss at the 2011 French Open, Barty also won her only junior Grand Slam title at Wimbledon at the age of 15 followed by a series of major wins at several other junior and international tournaments.
With her exceptional all-court game and a crafty style of play, Barty also made her Fed Cup debut for Australia in 2013 at the age of 16, playing in two away ties. She has also represented her country in the Hopman Cup twice making her first appearance at the event in 2013. During the tie against Italy, she won a lopsided singles match against former French Open champion and world No. 35 Francesca Schiavone in just 55 minutes, the biggest singles win of her career at the time, only at the age of 16.
Ashleigh is also the National Indigenous Tennis Ambassador for Tennis Australia. However, she decided to take a break from professional tennis from September 2014 until February 2016, and ended up pursuing her interest in cricket semi-professionally during the second half of her tennis break.
Near the start of 2017, after making a return from her tennis break, Barty picked up her first career wins at the Australian Open, reaching the third round. During the US Open series in August, Barty reached back-to-back Premier 5 rounds of 16 at the Canadian Open and the Cincinnati Open, and at the finish of this vigorous season, she reached a career-high ranking of No.17 in the world.
In 2018, Barty defeated defending champion Julia Görges and home favourite Wang Qiang to win the biggest title of her career and end the season at a career-high ranking of No. 15 in the world. The same year, she again touched a groundbreaking milestone by bagging her first ever Grand Slam doubles title with partner CoCo Vandeweghe.
Ashleigh, at 24, has successfully registered all these humungous achievements to her name and she undoubtedly, carries way more potential of making it to the top in the sports world, breaking high records and making her country proud.
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