Australian Open: Ashleigh Barty in Wonderland, more than a fairytale
Ash Barty will walk onto Rod Laver Arena with the wide-eyed wonder of Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Ash Barty will walk onto Rod Laver Arena with the wide-eyed wonder of Alice falling down the rabbit hole and finding a world nearly too fantastic and promising to be true. Cheshire Cats, Mad Hatters and March Hares may count among her audience on an enchanted Monday evening at Melbourne Park.
Ashleigh in Wonderland. Why, sometimes she’s believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
All the cats, hatters and hares, all of us courtside, all of us in the pubs and RSL clubs, all of us watching from the living rooms of a nation that can do with some good news right about now, all of us will be hoping the night ends with the get-that-up-ya fist pump that has become her signature celebration.
The one that starts with a shuffle and a skip and ends with an uppercut to the sky. Is that new? I think that is new. She’s the world No 1 — the mantle still takes some getting used to but there it is, in black and white — and she’s as genuine a people’s champion as you can get.
Which people? All people. If you’ve ever been scared of the big, bad world, if you’ve ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin, if you’ve ever felt too short, or too fat, or too skinny, or too uncoordinated, or too dumb, or too hopeless, or too tentative, or too awkward, or too overawed, or too plain, or too pressured, or too stressed, or too shy, or too depressed to dive headlong into your dream, this is your champion.
If you reckon you’ve never felt any of those things, you’re lying. They should clear RLA of adults and allow only teenage girls into the crowd. Because, above all, she is their champion, the champion of young women who don’t know how strong and capable and beautiful they really are.
We all have weaknesses and worries, and so does Barty, but her trademark salute is her message to the negativity that still whispers in her ear. Another win. Shuffle. Skip. Sky. Get that up ya.
Her weapon? The mullygrubber backhand. A mullygrubber, if you remember your backyard cricket days, is a ball that rolls along the ground, impossible to play, tough luck, see ya.
It’s normally a fluke. The ball hits a rock or a crack or something and shoots so low that it cannot be hit.
One variation of Barty’s slice backhand goes like a mullygrubber. It’s the one she hits from mid-court. The one she hits down the line with such a wicked side and underspin that it rises no higher than an opponent’s big toe. It skids away like a balata golf ball and slithers away like a startled snake.
She is the only woman in the world who can hit a mullygrubber backhand, a handful of times per match, and there is no one, absolutely no one, who can combat it.
She is the very best of Australian sport. She’s a respectful winner, a gracious loser, a fierce competitor.
You can imagine her winning Wimbledon just as easily as you can imagine her with a six-pack of beer in front of the cricket at home.
She didn’t played her best tennis while winning last week’s Adelaide International, but she solved her problems with the studiousness of someone getting the better of a Rubik’s cube. She meets Ukraine’s world number 120 Lesia Tsurenko at 7pm (AEDT).
“I will enjoy the challenge,” she says. “I will enjoy what next week brings. It’s a brilliant event to be a part of.
“You only get to play so many Australian Opens. It’s about enjoying the competition and the challenge and focusing on what I can do.
“There’s not really much else I have to worry about. If it’s a first round, if it’s a final, if it’s anything in between, it’s still an amazing experience. I just have to go out there and enjoy it.”
Prodigious junior. Lost soul. Tries to please everyone else. Quits tennis.
Plays cricket. Quits cricket. Plays tennis. Pleases herself. Everyone else can get stuffed. Wins a major. Becomes the world No 1.
All these impossible things before breakfast. She says of a fairytale that Lewis Carroll may have struggled to dream up: “It’s been an incredible 3½ years for myself, coming back into the sport.
“I’ve surrounded myself with quality people, with authentic people, the best at what they do. I just think I’m a very lucky girl … to have a team of people around me that have helped me try to become the best person that I can be.
“It just so happens that, you know, I’ve learned to strike a tennis ball reasonably well, as well. But I mean, look, it has been a personal development.
“Nothing’s really changed for me as a person (since becoming world No 1). It shouldn’t really change me as a tennis player. It’s about learning from all the experiences I’ve had: the good, the bad, the ugly.”
Perhaps I’ve watched too much of Barty in the past week.
In Adelaide, a singer-songwriter who calls himself The Lyrical did a show at a pub that calls itself The Rosey.
He talked about being a busker until finding the courage to get on a stage.
How a spotlight and audience scared the hell out of him but now he’s overcome it.
How people used to tell him he would never get off the streets but now he’s proved them wrong. He’s written about those times.
“They say I am a busker,” he sings. “But you know, they are wrong. I am a rock star.”
He made me think of Barty, of all people, of where she’s been and where she is now.
She’s dismissed herself as a busker when she‘s given it all away. She’s been a rock star all along. As a banner held by a teenage girl in Adelaide has said, “Go, Girl.”
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