Ash Barty’s 70,481km odyssey to Wimbledon

Ash Barty cried when she left Australia in March. Strict quarantine measures means she’s locked out until probably November.

Miami. Charleston. Stuttgart. Madrid. Rome. Paris. London. Tokyo. Montreal. Cincinnati. New York. Sounds like a glorified holiday that locked-in Australians can only dream of while trying to remember where the airport actually is. But for Ash Barty, it’s the gruelling 70,481km travel schedule keeping her away from her favourite place in this big, wide, beautiful world. Home.

In March, Barty kissed her dog, the local golf club championship and her favourite bloke goodbye when she committed herself fulltime to the tour. She had a good old cry. Going away meant staying away for between five and seven months.

It ain’t no joy ride when you’re training, competing, recovering from a dodgy hip and trying to work out why Richmond have become duds in the AFL.

She’s definitely locked out of Australia until after the US Open in September, and perhaps until the WTA Finals, which are yet to be announced but traditionally completed in early November.

Australia’s strict quarantine requirements make it pointless for Barty to return home for a couple of weeks. She’d spend all of it in a hotel room. She might not get a flight. If she did, the narks would howl about favourable treatment.

Which was why, when she walked out the door of her Ipswich home in March, grabbed a lift to Brisbane Airport, said see ya later, alligator, to Queensland, went through three flights and two cancellations on a painstaking 46-hour trip to Miami that ended when she flopped on her hotel bed and wondered whether all this was going to be worth it … she had already shed a few sets of tears.

Her Wimbledon campaign is promising but don’t doubt it’s accompanied by homesickness, wistfulness and enough use of a suitcase to turn a less sturdy soul into a basket case. Total travel kilometres? When she lands at Brisbane airport again, she’ll have clocked 70,481 kilometres – plus the cab ride home. A hundred hours and 38 minutes of flight time. At least her fella has joined her on the longest road. Her boyfriend, Garry Kissick, is courtside and constantly by her side in London.

“It was quite hard to leave Australia and quite emotional to me,” she said when she first lobbed in Miami. “What should have been quite a simple Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to L.A., L.A. on to Miami – it’s usually quite an easy trip.

“We had a fight cancellation leaving Australia, another fight cancellation when we got to L.A. It was quite a wriggle around. It was something that was new to me, new to try and wrap my head around and comprehend, where we’re going to be away for such an extended period. Of course there were tears the days leading up.

Ash Barty has made many sacrifices chasing her Wimbledon dream Picture: Getty Images

“There were tears when I did finally leave, and then when we left. Then we were delayed and had to leave again. It was all kind of happening.”

“The opposite to the bee’s knees,” was her compatriot John Millman’s description of how tough Australian tennis players have to do it this year.

Which is what, exactly? The duck’s nuts? Nope. The raw prawn. Yep. Difficult to swallow. Unfair.

Northern hemisphere players can return home whenever they please. Barty normally hurries to Ipswich after Wimbledon for some rest, recuperation, golf, family time and amber refreshments but this year, the earliest she will be home is mid-September, after the US Open.

If she decides to defend her title at the prestigious and lucrative WTA Finals, she’ll be away until November. Richmond will have lost the flag by then.

Locked out. For a long time. There goes the Brookwater Golf Club championship, which she won while she was the happiest homebody last year.

A Wimbledon trophy would be a reasonable replacement on the mantelpiece, you suspect, but Barty has a seriously tough fourth-round match against French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova.

The Czech has the relatively modest world ranking of No.15 but last month’s triumph at Roland Garros, in singles and doubles, confirmed her as the hottest women’s player on the planet this year.

Wimbledon has mucked up the seedings. Barty and Krejcikova are numbers one and two on this year’s WTA points race. Yet they’re forced to face off in the fourth round. It’s the opposite to the bee’s knees of a draw for them both. It’s not a duck’s nuts of a draw, either. More raw prawn.

“Another great challenge, but looking forward to it,” Barty said. “She’s been playing some great stuff and it will be a new challenge for me. I’ve never played her before.”

Krejcikova has no travel restrictions to contend with. After winning the French Open, she could return home to Ivancice for the sort of battery recharging Barty can only dream of. Krejcikova was a doubles specialist until Covid-19 lockdowns led her to experiment with singles. Her meteoric rise to the Roland Garros title was extraordinary.

Wimbledon officials should have seeded her higher but then again, they had reason not to. She’d never previously qualified for the main draw.

Barty feels at home in the world number one ranking. Grass is her favourite surface. She’ll be hoping Krejcikova’s comments about everything being too good to be true lead to her crashing back down to Earth on the Wimbledon turf.

In her first interview at The All England Club, Krejcikova said: “I think you can actually see that I feel actually quite nervous. I cannot really put the good words together because all of this is very new and all of this is really exciting and special. Also, it‘s stressful. I didn’t expect this to happen. Now I’m here.”