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On the morning of March 23, Beijing time, the international women's tennis world suddenly found that their world's first rapids had retreated. Australian Ashley Barty, who holds the world number one title in the WTA and three-time Grand Slam champion and has just won the Australian Open women's singles title, has officially announced her retirement. At this point, she is still a month away from her 26th birthday.
When it comes to athlete retirement, the first thing that people will think of is that athletes decline in their competitive status as they grow older, and eventually withdraw from competition and return home under the squeeze of the "back wave". However, this is not the case for Barty, who is under 26 years old and is currently dominating women's tennis. In 2019, Barty won his first Grand Slam title at the French Open. She has since won women's singles titles at Wimbledon 2021 and Australian Open 2022. In particular, this year's Australian Open win, which is the second time after 44 years that Australian homegrown players have won the cup on their doorstep. In terms of world rankings, Barty reached the world number one for the first time in June 2019. Although she has briefly given way to Naomi Osaka over the past two years or so, Barty remains the strongest player in women's tennis today, with a total of 121 weeks in the world's number one position. She has also won 15 singles titles and 12 doubles titles, bringing the total prize money to $23.82 million. It is precisely because of such brilliant achievements that Barty's sudden retirement is even more puzzling. After all, she doesn't have any injury problems at the moment.
Explaining the reason for her retirement, Barty said tennis had made her feel overdrawn. She said: "This is the first time I have spoken the word retirement out loud. I'm ready for that. For me personally, it was the right choice. I now have no physical motivation, emotional need to move on in tennis and everything I need to challenge myself at such a high level. I just knew I was overdrawn, I wasn't in that state. ”
When a player who is now the world number one and is considered to be able to continue to set more impressive records says that he has been overdrawn, it will indeed shock and puzzle the outside world. However, Barty had a farewell story before that. In 2011, at the age of 15, Barty won the Wimbledon Championships Junior Women's Singles Title. After that, she began to gradually enter the professional arena. However, after exiting the first round of the 2014 US Open, Barty announced that he was leaving tennis indefinitely. At the time, it was reported that Barty had temporarily quit tennis because of depression. Soon after, Barty became a cricketer. In February 2016, Barty returned to professional tennis and began to climb the ladder.
Now, Barty has once again decided to say goodbye to tennis, this time not by leaving indefinitely last time, but by officially announcing his retirement. I believe that many Barty fans are also looking forward to her return to the field after a period of experience.
Still, as Barty says, "Tennis has given me dreams and much more." But I knew it was time to leave, to put down the racket and chase other dreams. I thought it was time for me to enjoy the next phase of my journey, as Ashley Barty herself, not as an athlete. "Whether or not he can return to the tennis arena in the future, Barty's performance on the tennis court is legendary enough. I believe that her next life will be equally wonderful.