Kerryn Harrington explains the story behind her hanging up on Ash Barty

It’s the hang-up that has gone viral. The Carlton AFLW player who hung up on world No. 1 Ash Barty reveals why she thought it was a prank, before the real panic set in.

Ash Barty answers the call from Kerryn Harrington. Picture: AAP Images

It’s not every day you end up on the phone to the world No. 1.

But for Carlton co-captain Kerryn Harrington, it’s resulted in a viral moment that she was convinced was a prank.

The AFL Women’s co-skipper was attempting to get a hold of her long-term partner, Joel Peterson, who is a journalist covering the Adelaide International.

But Peterson forgot to put his phone on airplane mode when Australian star tennis player and grand slam champion Ash Barty sat down to face the media.

”Kez? You there?”. Picture: AAP Image

Harrington rang, but couldn’t believe who answered.

“I was at training, actually, and I was under the pump and had to get a message to him pretty quickly,” Harrington told the Herald Sun.

“I rang the phone and a female voice answered the phone and I kept checking that I’d called the right person.

“It was trying to connect to my car (bluetooth) as well, so I missed probably the first five or six seconds of her talking. I was a bit slow on the uptake anyway.”

Barty had asked the media pack whose phone it was, saying “Does anyone know a Kez?”.

She had answered the phone with “Hey, Kez” and said “it’s Ash Barty” before exclaiming that “she hung up on me!”.

Harrington later apologised to the top-ranked player on Twitter.

Kerryn Harrington is co-captain of the Blues AFLW team, but has gone viral. Picture: Getty Images

The now-viral footballer, who has played 16 games for the Blues, said she “genuinely thought it was one of Joel’s workmates trying to stitch him up”, which prompted the hang-up.

“I wasn’t that interested and then I panicked and thought ‘oh no, I’ve got him in a fair bit of trouble here’, and I just hung up.

“When he didn’t call back for a while I thought ‘oh, it might have actually been her’.”

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The 27-year-old — who is planning to leave a note on Peterson’s phone when Barty fronts the press again — is a big tennis fan and joked that she would have loved to have had an opportunity to have a dig at staunch Richmond fan Barty given the Blues meet the Tigers in Round 1 of the AFLW season in a few weeks’ time.

“I definitely would have said something about it,” she laughed.

Originally published as Kerryn Harrington explains the story behind her hanging up on Ash Barty