Ash Barty in the hunt for Queensland’s top sport award

Tennis ace Ash Barty leads a championship field vying for the 25th Annual Queensland Sport Awards at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.

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Queensland’s World No. 1 tennis player Ashleigh Barty has won all manner of plaudits around the world but has yet to be named the Courier-Mail Channel 7 Queensland Sport Star of the Year.

That could soon change as she leads a championship field at the 25th Annual Queensland Sport Awards at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on Saturday night.

In 2019 Barty became only the fifth Australian to top the tennis rankings and the first Australian in 46 years to win the French Open.

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Ash Barty returns the ball to Czech Republic's Marketa Vondrousova during their women's singles final match at the French Open. (Photo by Martin BUREAU / AFP)

Five of our State’s sporting greats will also be honoured. Jockey Mick Dittman will be given ``Legend’’ status while Olympic swimming great Libby Trickett, Wallabies rugby union ace Jules Guerassimoff, Olympic hockey gold medallist Angie Lambert and Commonwealth Games lawn bowls gold medallist Kelvin Kerkow will be inducted into the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame.

Former Olympian and long time Brisbane local Libby Trickett with a newly painted mural of herself, at The Valley Pool, where she started swimming. Picture: Jono Searle.

Barty’s rivals for Sport Star of the Year are:

MARNUS LABUSCHAGNE, whose four half centuries helped Australia retain cricket’s Ashes and who cracked his maiden century against Pakistan at the Gabba two weeks ago.

Australia's batsman Marnus Labuschagne. (Photo by William WEST/AFP)

MATHEW BELCHER, the most successful Dinghy Sailor in Australian Olympic history.

JACINTA CARROLL, the 2019 Water Ski Jump World Champion.

STEPHANIE GILMORE, who won her seventh world surfing title in Hawaii last December.

JODIE KENNY, the Australian Hockeyroos captain.

GEORGIA MILLER, who became only the second person to win the Coolangatta Gold, the Kellogg’s Nutra-Grain Ironwoman Series and the Australian Ironwoman title in the same year.

KARLA PRETORIUS, the Sunshine Coast Lightning netball vice-captain who was pivotal at Goal Defence as her team notched its first Suncorp Super Netball minor premiership. She was named Player of the Tournament at the 2019 Netball World Cup.

ARIARNE TITMUS, who won the Women’s 400m freestyle at the 2019 World Swimming Championships in South Korea.

Previous winners of the Queensland Sport Star of the Year award include Cate Campbell, Jeff Horn, Susie O’Neill, Mick Doohan, Grant Hackett, Jodie Henry, Matthew Hayden, Adam Scott, Jason Day and Sam Stosur.

Originally published as Ash Barty in the hunt for Queensland’s top sport award