Ash Barty joins Australia's sporting greats with 2021 Wimbledon trophy

Ash Barty’s Wimbledon triumph is one of Australia’s greatest sporting moments. But where does she sit among the legends?

Moments in Australian sport all get judged against Cathy Freeman.

In many ways it’s not fair because nothing can ever come close to what she did that night inside the Sydney Olympic Stadium in 2000.

Ash Barty went darn close.

If you’re talking about creating a national sense of pride, producing an iconic moment and grinding the country to a halt, then Barty achieved all of that when she overpowered Karolina Pliskova to win her first Wimbledon title.

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The script had been written a long way out given it was the 50-year anniversary of Barty’s idol Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s first victory at the All-England Club.

To honour this moment Barty had a dress designed similar to the one Goolagong Cawley wore for this year’s tournament.

Two Indigenous women winning the same tournament half a century apart ... you can’t come up with a better fairytale.

Barty answered many questions in the final but also created one very intriguing one.

Where does her Wimbledon victory rank in Australian sporting history?

It certainly goes straight into the top 10 moments which have gripped our nation, but exactly where it fits in there is up for further debate.

Ashleigh Barty react safter defeating Karolina Pliskova in the Wimbledon final.

The television ratings for 11pm on Saturday night will be off the charts, so she gets a tick for having the eyes of the nation transfixed.

All of the top 10 have done that, with Freeman’s gold medal performance at the Sydney Olympics untouchable as the greatest moment.

John Aloisi sinking the penalty to get the Socceroos into the 2006 World Cup is on the next rung alongside Australia II winning the America’s Cup in 1983.

Ian Thorpe’s miracle swim to mow down Gary Hall Jnr over the final leg of the 4x100m relay at the Sydney Olympics, inflicting America’s first loss in the event, is in the mix.

Adam Scott had everyone transfixed to the TV set when he won the Masters at Augusta in 2013, as did Cadel Evans defying the odds to win the 2011 Tour de France.

And we can’t leave out Steven Bradbury’s miracle on ice at the 2012 Winter Olympics.

Barty doesn’t have that shock factor but she does have the history factor given it’s been 41 years since an Australian woman — again her hero Goolagong Cawley — had won at Wimbledon.

Her story has a lot of the against-the-odds about it, with the last month even contributing to that.

When she was forced to retire from the French Open because of a hip injury which threw her Wimbledon preparation out the window, even her staunchest supporters were concerned it might be a bridge too far.

But Barty has always had the happy knack of finding her way back.

She did that in 2016 when many in Australian tennis thought she’d been lost to the sport forever.

Ash Barty in action for the Brisbane Heat in 2015.

The Queenslander had rightfully been dubbed our next tennis queen after winning the junior title at Wimbledon at 15 in 2011.

But this veered off track in 2014 when she walked away, turning to cricket for her competitive hit, and it was no surprise that she was successful there.

Thankfully it was short-lived and by February 2016 she was back, and this is where the Barty story gets some serious cred.

Eighteen months after coming back, she was ranked No.17 in the world.

In 2019 she made the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and then went on to win her maiden Grand Slam title at the French Open — Australia’s first victory there since Margaret Court in 1973.

A month later she was crowned world No.1. All of this had been achieved in just over three years.

Barty has maintained that ranking since and the 25-year-old showed on Saturday night why that is the case, setting the tone against Pliskova from the opening point of the final.

It was a victory with so many elements associated with it and one which puts her easily in the top echelon of moments alongside Cathy, John and that weird boat with the secret keel.

Originally published as Ash Barty joins Australia's sporting greats with 2021 Wimbledon trophy