Ash Barty the motivator: back yourself and look out for No 1

Ash Barty laughs at the mention of increased pressure and expectation at an Australian Open.

Ash Barty lines up a backhand to Marketa Vondrousova during their quarter-final match at the Adelaide International. Picture: AAP

A giant billboard stares down on the main street of Adelaide. Pictured on the billboard are Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Imperious figures, all, but they’ve been pushed to the background by the resolute young woman who’s ascended to the throne in this landscape-stealing portrait of tennis royalty: Ash Barty.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown? Not really. Barty laughs at the mention of increased pressure and expectation at an Australian Open that has her name and mugshot on it. “You can have some fun with it in the paper,” she’s grinned before her 6-3 6-3 win over Czech Marketa Vondrousova in the quarter-finals of the Adelaide International on Thursday evening.

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Have some fun with it? Righto! But there’s more to it than that. It’s been a factor for past faces of the Open. Pat Rafter and especially Sam Stosur have fallen into the trap of trying too hard to give the masses what they want.

Australian players are mostly anonymous and alone overseas. In Melbourne, friends and family and all sorts of hangers-on are around. There’s more commitments, more requests, more distractions, more spotlight. Barty will be the centre of non-stop television advertisements and promotional posters on buses and trams and street corners, which means she’s going to find it difficult to escape herself.

Parisians have barely noticed her at the French Open until she’s lobbed into the semi-finals. Contesting the Australian Open as the world No 1 is a whole new ball game of hype, but Barty may be more of a Lleyton Hewitt, feeding off the buzz of Rod Laver Arena, finding a way for the spotlight to lift her instead of shrinking her. She certainly does not seem to give a hoot about it all. Why? Perhaps a video on the big screen during her win over Vondrousova has provided a clue.

It’s a message played during changeovers in which she’s telling kids to back themselves. She says she was told she was too short to be a professional. She encourages all the sweet-faced little rat bags in the crowd to keep on swinging. “Don’t let the voices get to you,” she says. “I play for me. You play for you.”

I think there’s more to that than the cuteness of the line. There’s no doubt she loves the foot-stomping support at Melbourne Park. Appreciates it. Acknowledges it. But the best way to reward it is to do what she’s done so well for the last two years. Her own thing. Playing her own tennis. Staying in her bubble of coach and closest mates. Ignoring the noise. She knows it’s there, she just doesn’t need to get caught up in it. She’s not doing it for any of us up in the grandstand. Really, she’s doing it for herself and her team, as she should.

If we gain enjoyment and perhaps inspiration from it, from seeing a young woman who’s overcome the negative voices to be the headline act above Adelaide’s main drag and Melbourne’s CBD, well, she will be pretty stoked about that.

“I play for me,” she kept telling the crowd via the big screen on Thursday night. “You play for you.”

Thursday against Vondrousova was a replay of the French Open final, which was the most flawless performance of Barty’s life, which led to her famously shocked refrain of, “Oh, f…!” She’s been early onto the court, kicking a footy. She’s started tentatively before finding a semi-decent gear. To Barty’s credit, she’s treating the Adelaide International as being important in its own right, and not just glorified practise for the Open. She will play feisty American Danielle Collins in the semi-finals.

Every player on Memorial Drive’s centre court on Thursday has exuded a certain air. Dayan Yastremska? A Steve Smith-like energy and industriousness. Donna Vemi? A quiet exasperation. Simona Halep? An impatient sort of patience. Aryna Sabalenka? Full-blown aggression and growing belief. Barty? Let’s give it a go.

When she says, “Don’t let the voices get to you,” she may like to take it even further in Melbourne, ignoring, to a degree, even those on her side. To do what she has done so well during her ascension. Play for herself.