Too nice? Incorrect. If you think Ash Barty’s Wimbledon loss to American Alison Riske has come from a lack of ruthlessness, you underestimate the ferocity of the competitor. And you don’t fully appreciate from where she’s come.
Too nice for what? Too nice to win a major?
She’s already won one. Too nice to become world number one? She’s done that. It’s easy to underestimate the quietly efficient. They’re making the least amount of noise so you think they’re not spilling their guts onto a court. If you know Barty’s history, you know her heart is on her sleeve as brazenly as Serena Williams’.
It’s just a different sort of heart.
Barty has put way too much pressure on herself as a teenager. She’s come to enjoy none of it.
Results have dictated whether she’s earned a little breathing space from a win or if the world is caving down from a loss. It’s all been too extreme because she hasn’t possessed the emotional maturity to take it all in stride.
In this second incarnation of her career, she understands perfectly what makes her trick.
She understands her own emotions and mindset. When she returned to the tour, the message to her entourage was this: We do it my way. The number one priority is to enjoy it, to never again be consumed by wins and losses, to treat each as Kipling tells everyone to in the words stamped above the entrance to Wimbledon.
Barty has vowed to treat victory and defeat the same, and she’s done it on her way out the door of The All England Club.
She’s regarded her French Open triumph as no particular big deal, and she’s responded to her Wimbledon defeat in kind.
She does not have a Williams-style domineering aura. Players are never going to be spooked by the sight of her.
She’s never going to blast an opponent off the court. She has a beautiful aura. An understated aura. The aura of a craftsperson just humbly plying their trade.
Again, never underestimate the grit that goes into all her matches but now and again, she’ll go off the boil.
She wasn’t beaten because she’s too nice. She was beaten because her serve deserted her, and her groundstrokes became passive. Her only weakness is when her topspin forehands and backhands fall too short.
A clean hitter can step forward and smoke flat winners, as Riske did.
The defeat did highlight something new, though. When you’re the world number one, everyone is going to play out of their skin against you. Barty is respected without necessarily being feared. As the years roll on, there’s going to be good and bad to that.
A nice problem to have.
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