World number one Ash Barty’s first in-depth interview
She has won Australia’s heart, and now, in her first in-depth interview, world number one Ash Barty opens up about success, family and staying true to her values.
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Ashleigh Barty was 10 years old when her first tennis coach, Jim Joyce, sat her down by the court and gave her four rules to live by when she played the game.
“First one?” he said. “Be a nice person. The second one is to respect people, and be respected. Third one is to have fun. And the fourth one: if you can play tennis too, it is a bonus.”
Today, the 23-year-old Barty is now a French Open champion, and Joyce’s influence is still reflected in her attitude on the court.
So much so, in fact, that when a “Team Barty” photo was taken to celebrate her being ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association in June, her childhood coach was called on court to be included in the picture.
Speaking with Stellar in an exclusive interview, it soon becomes apparent that for Barty, the concepts of loyalty, humility, family and generosity remain paramount. And it’s not simply her on-court success — the grand slam win, the top ranking — that have captured this nation’s heart. It is her attitude.
“If you win or lose a match, whether you are 12 years old playing in a pennant comp or playing at Wimbledon — for me, the result actually doesn’t matter,” Barty tells Stellar.
“It’s how I go about it. It’s about playing and trying my best. That’s all I can do. And I know that will make Jim proud, my sisters Sara and Ali proud, my parents proud, my coach Craig Tyzzer proud, my team proud, my boyfriend proud. That’s all that matters.”
Those close to Barty say the tennis champion has a “heart of gold”.
She is, they repeatedly tell Stellar, full of humility. Her sisters describe her as a generous soul whose happy place is on the couch at home in Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane, with a cuppa in her hand, surrounded by her family and her boyfriend of about three years, golfer Garry Kissick.
For Barty, happiness comes not just from holding up a grand slam trophy but also the little things she has been doing during a whirlwind trip home, following her efforts at Wimbledon in early July. Little things such as cleaning the house, watching sport on TV, hanging with her “incredible” family and playing with her niece Lucy, three, and nephew Oscar, 18 months, at the local park.
“Being at home, with the puppies, a cup of coffee, my family, Lucy and Oscar … really bringing back that normality is my idea of happiness,” says Barty. “That’s what I miss most when I am away … even just cleaning my own house.”
It is fair to say Australia has fallen hard for its selfless homegrown star. And the Barty factor is very much a thing. Tennis Australia figures show the Fed Cup final in Perth this November, where she will hit the court, is the fastest-selling tie they have ever had in Australia, with more than 70 per cent of tickets already snapped up.
And since her French Open win, there has been a rise in interest in the sport, especially with young girls, and in Hot Shots (children aged five to 12) registrations. The organisation’s social media has also been flooded with comments from fans enthusing about their new-found role model.
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Barty remains humbled. “The love and the support I have received from Australians has gone to the next level,” she says. “It’s amazing. I can’t wait for the Aussie summer to come around.” As for those who say she is a role model, “If I can have an effect or a positive impact on one person’s life, be it a young boy or girl or anyone in the world, that would be incredible.
[I’m] trying to share all the lessons I have learnt, and one of those is to really enjoy this. You can’t take life so seriously; you have to be grateful for all of the positions you are put in. It’s also about going about it the right way. Which is the way Mum and Dad taught me: sticking with my values, and my family’s values.”
Barty’s love affair with tennis also stems from a humble place: her parents’ garage. As a four-year-old in suburban Ipswich, Barty would belt an old tennis ball against its wall, initially using an old wooden tennis racquet her parents had. “I hit balls over and over inside that garage,” she recalls.
“I’d get creative — the amount of times I hit things off shelves just for a challenge. I became so passionate so quickly, and so addicted. I loved it instantly.”
Two weeks before she turned five, and keenly aware their child had taken to the sport, Robert and Josie Barty took their youngest to West Brisbane Tennis Centre, a group of five courts amid a cluster of factories, to be coached by Joyce.
One or the other would sit in the stands, reading a book or occasionally watching as their child learnt the mechanics of the game. “We have concentrated on being Mum and Dad,” Robert Barty tells Stellar. “We haven’t concentrated on being the parents of Ash Barty, the tennis player. We never wanted to be hands-on; we don’t know anything about tennis.”
In a world where kids are often pushed along by overzealous parents or hot-housed at multimillion-dollar tennis academies in hopes a world champion emerges on the other side, Barty’s experience was different.
“Probably one of the best things my parents did for my tennis was to step back and let Jim take control,” says Barty. “That was perfect. I needed one voice and message to come across.”
Most days, she practised in a group. She got one private lesson each week, and that went for an hour. At all other times, she was in the mix with bigger kids, sometimes adults, working as a team.
There was no time to be a brat, throw a racquet, grunt, swear, or talk back. She had to learn to lose with grace.
Still, Robert says Barty was a cheeky kid — in fact, he adds good-naturedly, she still is. Barty was stubborn. She avoided housework. And she was more likely to be found playing a Game Boy under her bed covers than helping her sisters with a chore. But, he explains, “We have an enormous amount of fun as a family. Nothing is too serious.
Growing up, the girls knew boundaries and rules, and they knew if they crossed those, the punishment Josie and I set would come.” Usually, it was a ban on TV or computer time which would, he says, “devastate” his daughters.
There was also sacrifice in the Barty household. The costs associated with tennis are not cheap — especially when training, travel, camps and equipment all add up.
“We couldn’t all play sport,” Barty tells Stellar. “Mum and Dad couldn’t afford it. Sara and Ali always encouraged me to chase my dreams, so for them to give up their sporting opportunities to ensure I had more of [one] was really special.”
Whenever she returns to Australia, Barty comes armed with gifts to spoil her mum, sisters, niece and nephew. It’s a trait, she says, that her dad firmly instilled in her.
Tennis has worn Barty down, though. In 2014, mentally fatigued by the arduous and isolating tennis tour, Barty took a break from the sport. The following year, she dabbled in cricket, soon landing a contract in the Women’s Big Bash League playing with Brisbane Heat.
It was a chance tennis training session with player Casey Dellacqua in January 2016 that made Barty step back, reconsider her decision and realise tennis remained her calling. She returned to the court without a ranking that June and ploughed forward.
When she did crack the top 100 in March 2017, Barty sent her dad a text message saying; “Hey Dad, finally made it.” And when she claimed world No. 1 and that French Open title in June, News Corp sports columnist Robert Craddock claimed that Barty’s rise to the top of “the tennis world is the most astonishing Australian sports story this century”.
Even her own family was blown away. “If someone would have told me that by the time Ash was 23 she’d have won a junior grand slam, an open doubles grand slam, a grand slam title and become the world No. 1, I would have said, ‘You’re kidding yourself,’” admits Robert.
As for what might come next for his daughter? “I think she’ll be a success at it, because of the people she has around her and the support they give her.”
To that end, when Barty speaks at press conferences she chooses her pronouns carefully; it is never “I” and always “we” or “my team” that come out of her mouth.
Those team members include her coach Craig Tyzzer, manager Nikki Craig and performance coach Ben Crowe. All of them, she says, keep her best interests at heart.
“When I came back I promised I would only surround myself with the best, most authentic and knowledgeable people,” she says. “We started together from scratch, three and half years ago, with no ranking. They’ve been with me every single day. There have been awful days. Tough days. But to be where we are now is pretty special.”
A former Nike director who has worked with seven-time world champion surfer Stephanie Gilmore and Andre Agassi, Crowe stepped in after Barty’s disappointing Wimbledon performance in 2018, where she lost in straight sets in the third round.
Working with Crowe resulted in one of the most transformative and challenging periods of Barty’s life. Crowe wanted her to learn to be vulnerable, which was directly opposed to how she had been operating. He wanted her to voice her dreams, to openly talk about her hopes of being world No. 1 and of winning a grand slam.
“One of the hardest things I have ever had to try and do was move past that fear of failure to ‘what could be’ if you do all the right things and work hard,” says Barty. “[To ask], ‘Why not you?’” What she learnt, she reflects now, is that “there is no reason why you can’t achieve your dreams. You have to just chip away at them.”
“She has shown incredible courage to get better as a person; that’s the most beautiful part,” Crowe tells Stellar. “Don’t get me wrong, I am rapt at what she has achieved professionally, but for me the most profound growth has been personal.”
Barty agrees that since returning to tennis, things have been “magical” for her on and off the court, but she remains focused on what comes next, including helping Australia achieve a strong showing when she plays at the US Open in New York later this month and at the Fed Cup final in Perth in November.
Win or lose, she plans to handle the outcome with grace. After her fourth round Wimbledon exit to Alison Riske last month, a stoic Barty famously observed, “The sun’s still going to come up tomorrow.”
“The beauty is the sun did still come up,” she tells Stellar. “And I went and had a great day out. Then we flew home. It’s beautiful to come home to a gorgeous Brisbane winter to see my family.
“The tennis matches are fantastic. I love them. I love the competition, the highs and the lows, but I feel like I have a new perspective. The highs aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low. It is very much a journey I am enjoying, but it’s more about the people I get to share it with.”
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