Ash Barty happy as the retiring kind ... for now

Ash Barty’s decision to call time on her storied tennis career might have shocked Australians but it was no surprise to her longtime coach Craig Tyzzer.

Ash Barty is all smiles in Brisbane after her first press conference on Thursday following her shock retirement decision. Picture: AFP

Ash Barty’s decision to call time on her storied tennis career might have shocked Australians and the sport she dominated but it was no surprise to the man who knows her game best, longtime coach Craig Tyzzer.

When she clinched the first of her three grand slam titles at Roland Garros in 2019, Barty cheekily asked him: “Can I retire now?”

As Tyzzer told it on Thursday, the diminutive world No.1 at his side, bare-headed in the Queensland sun, Barty had nothing more to give or to prove after she went on to win Wimbledon in July and the Australian Open in January.

“I think it’s the right time,” he said of her retirement at the unfashionably young age of 25. “I think she won the Aussie Open for … everyone else and I don’t think there is anything left in the tank for her.”

As ever, there was a sense of occasion with a Barty appearance, her first since announcing she was hanging up the racquet and teasing that she would have more to say about her plans at a media conference in Brisbane. So what was next for the nation’s favourite daughter? A return to cricket or cameo in the AFLW?

Perhaps a spot in the commentary box alongside friend and former tour player Casey Dellacqua, with whom she broke the news of her exit on Wednesday.

Could there be more to those nagging hip and arm injuries than she had let on when she pulled out of Indian Wells a fortnight ago?

Barty deflected the questions with all the grace of her trademark backhand slice return. “You will have to wait and see,” she said, grinning. “I’m not giving you everything right now … you’ll just have to be patient. Patience is a virtue.”

C’mon Ash. “How about a hint,” one reporter persisted.

“I’ve said exactly what I wanted to say,” she replied, because in life, as in tennis, timing was everything and this was the moment for her to step away.

“I’m an open book. I’m not hiding anything. I’ve got no secrets. I am just so proud of all of the work I have done with my team.”

But what a “hell of a journey” it had been, she said. Fifteen WTA singles titles including the slams; 120 weeks atop the world rankings; $23.8m in career prize money; recognition as 2020 Young Australian of the Year.

Retirement wasn’t a “kneejerk reaction” to the grind of the tour or added stress of Covid-safe tournament bubbles, Barty insisted. But as a self-confessed “homebody”, she looked forward to having more time with her parents in Ipswich, her sisters, the nieces and nephews she was teaching to play tennis, as well as fiance Garry Kissick, a local golf pro.

“The thing is, I have given everything I can to this sport. I am absolutely spent and I have nothing left to give. I am really exited now for what comes next.”

A guiding figure in Team Barty since she returned to tennis in 2016 ranked in the 300s following a stint in semi-professional cricket, Tyzzer said they had started talking in earnest about her retirement last year after Wimbledon. Coming into the Australian Open, it had been hard to motivate her, “to get a spark to go”.

He said: “Her mindset was so relaxed, so easygoing with it all. It was almost like she didn’t care whether she won or lost, but she obviously did. I think the Australian summer was for everyone else and not for her.”