‘I know how to play on clay’: Barty reveals mindset change helped her claim first grand slam

Ash Barty has opened up on her up and down road to tennis glory. “Those experiences I wouldn’t change for the world because without a doubt it helped me build resilience. FULL INTERVIEW

Ash Barty was one of the most dominant forces in world tennis but the Australian champion has revealed she struggled on clay courts weeks out from her famous French Open win.

The retired star opened up about how a loss on clay three weeks before her 2019 major win was the turning point that led to her triumph in Paris.

“It’s funny, I have never been good on clay courts, I could never get my timing right,” Barty said while speaking in front of more than 600 people at The Southport School’s Foundation breakfast, held at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Friday.

“But about three weeks before the Open, I lost in this tournament leading into it 7-5, 7-5.

“And I remember speaking to (mindset coach) Crowey (Ben Crowe) after and I said to him with this smile on my face, ‘I know how to play on clay.’

Three weeks after losing the lead-in tournament to the French Open in 2019, Barty claimed her first grand slam. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

“Then three weeks later, I got it all right and won the French Open.”

With plenty of tennis jokes being thrown around, Barty also spoke about her time in the spotlight and the pressure that came from being a junior tennis star.

“I remember walking away (from the sport) the first time and everyone kept saying to me how young I was,” Barty said.

“But at that stage, I had been playing tennis and in the system for about 12 years.

“It took a lot out of me, so I took up cricket for a couple of years before returning to tennis.”

Barty burst onto the stage when she was 15-years-old, winning the 2011 Junior Wimbledon championship.

But in 2014, she stepped away from the sport and signed with the Brisbane Heat women’s Big Bash League cricket team.

Following two seasons at the Heat, Barty returned to tennis in 2016, stating she had ‘plenty more to give.’

Barty said she wasn’t satisfied until she won Wimbledon in 2021.

“It just kept getting to me, I wanted it, I knew I could get there and that was my pure focus,” Barty said.

“Winning Wimbledon meant absolutely everything to me.

“Getting the winners trophy from Kate (Catherine, Princess of Wales) was such an experience.

“I remember thinking, walk up, thank her, get off stage, don’t stuff up.”

In 2021 Barty ended a 42-year drought, winning her maiden Australian Open, the first Aussie to win it since Mark Edmondson and Kim Warwick won doubles in 1980.

The biggest surprise for Barty came at the presentation.

“I was the only one on my team who didn’t know that Evonne (Goolagong) was presenting the winners trophy,” Barty said.

“It’s funny, my first thought was I’m glad she isn’t giving this to Dani (Danielle Collins).

“But to receive it from her was so incredible, it meant so much to me.

“I am forever grateful for that moment.”

Evonne Goolagong Cawley was a former world number one and a fellow Indigenous tennis star, who dominated in the 1970s and 1980s.

Barty put the racquet away following her Australian Open win.

The former World Number One married Australian golfer Garry Kissick in July 2022, with Barty giving birth to their son Hayden 12-months later.

In other parts of the onstage interview she touched on her sabbatical from pro tennis to play cricket before her victorious, Grand Slam championship winning return, and how she separated Ash Barty the tennis champion from Ash Barty the person.

- On her childhood and being a teenager in the spotlight?

“It was intense, as a 16, 17 year old I was playing against women on tour, I was playing in a professional environment around the world and when I was home training I was trying to build a foundation for my body, my mind, my game to be able to withstand the rigours that come with a full schedule against women who had been doing it for a lot longer than I had.

“As a young kid, I always dreamed of playing professional tennis, to me that was just being out on the court and playing.

“I didn’t understand a lot of the extra pressures that came with the environment. A standard day, I’d be on court for a couple of hours a day, gym for a couple of hours a day, at that period I was living down in Melbourne by myself.

“So I was trying to function and have a normal life outside of my work which was difficult to do when you’re away from family, living in an apartment on your own in a foreign city.

“All of those experiences I wouldn’t change for the world because without a doubt it helped me build resilience, it helped me become a better problem solver, at times it helped me make tough decisions and have to understand where my priorities lay. It led me to have that little break, sabbatical, retirement, whatever we want to call it, because that forced me to actually sit down and understand what I wanted, as a person, what I wanted as an athlete and it still took more time. I had humps and bumps along the way, and squiggles along the way, it wasn’t straight forward by any means.

“I think during that really tough period, right before I decided to step away for the first time, that brought so many lessons that held me in good stead for the second phase of my career, which I think was just more mature. If I describe it in one word it’s just the maturity of understanding what I needed to do, what I wanted to get out of myself, what I wanted to achieve in my career and I was very lucky everything fell into place for me, to be able to discover my team and to learn that pretty quickly.

- Who are you and what do you want?

“Who are you and what do you want... I couldn’t answer those questions, which was confronting. Tennis was consuming my whole life, where I needed it to not consume every single part of me, because it was what I did, it wasn’t who I was. When I learned to understand the difference in those two, learned to have the separation, there’s Ash Barty the person and Ash Barty the athlete... learning there’s a difference that the two can complement each other, the two can compete with each other, they can coincide but they are different, I think having that separation was really pivotal and important for me in the second phase of my career and that allowed me to enjoy both more.

“It allowed me to let go and handle adversity, the tough days, better. They weren’t easy, it doesn’t get any easier I think you just get better equipped to learn, move on and to debrief and do all the things you need to do to accept it. That’s all you can do, accept you are where you are, you are where you’re meant to be, everything will turn out the way that it should. It took me a long time to learn a few of those simple messages, and I know that it does for a lot of people.

- Husband and parents play golf - where do you sit in the golf ranks in your family..

“I’ve always loved golf, it was the one sport that I could probably play and not get too competitive. I say too competitive because I still can’t help myself. Mum and dad were very good golfers. Dad, his journey took a bit of a turn, he was going to head over to America to Texas to play in college and didn’t end up going. Came home and met mum on the golf course. Dad was a scratch golfer, mum played off 6 or 7 on her day. My first goal was to play lower than 6 or 7, sorry mum, I’ve got to tick that one off. Garry (Kissick) my husband is a scratch golfer as well, I’m not a scratch, I can hold my own when I need to and sometimes we can just ramp up the competitiveness. For a healthy marriage, Garry and I don’t play often together, shouldn’t share the car, you just shouldn’t do it. So I choose to play with my mum instead.

- On segway into other sports...

“This is hard to say, I worked exceptionally hard, but there haven’t been many sports that I’ve tried that I haven’t been able to pick up quite easily. That sounds really arrogant but sport comes naturally to me, it always has. Netball is the one sport I struggle to stop with the ball. Sport for me has always been the thing that’s come most naturally, doesn’t matter what code, doesn’t whether it’s a bat or a ball, kicking, throwing, whatever it is, running, athletics days at school, I loved it, I just fell in love with sport in many different ways. It’s always been the thing that’s come most naturally to me.”