‘Lowest of lows’: Barty on Wimbledon ‘tantrum’

Tennis superstar Ashleigh Barty admits she teared up when forced to write about her 'awful' 2018 outburst in her new memoir.

Ash Barty. Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images.

Tennis superstar Ashleigh Barty admits she teared up when forced to write about 'awful' experience in her new memoir.

Ash Barty cried as she wrote the opening lines to her memoir. 

She had forced herself to sit down, put pen to paper, and describe the “most awful” time of her life. But when it came to writing the chapter, she couldn’t quite find the words.

That chapter, of course, described the “embarrassing tantrum” the tennis superstar threw after she crashed out of 2018 Wimbledon in a crushing defeat to Russian Daria Kasatkina.

“(Writing the chapter) was awful. It was terrible. I had always felt ashamed saying it out loud or explaining to someone what had happened,” Barty told guests at an exclusive Dymocks event on Wednesday night, while in conversation with fellow tennis legend Casey Dellacqua.

“But in the end, once I wrote it, I felt so much more at ease. I felt like I could accept that it was a hard moment, I had completely screwed up, but I had learned from it.”

Barty, a three-time Grand Slam winner shocked the world when she retired in March aged 26, shortly after winning the Australian Open.

In the book, My Dream Time, Barty frankly accepts she lashed out at her team in the box, after she had lost the game to Kasatkina.

She targeted a particularly vicious spray at her coach Craig Tyzzer, but then afterwards she felt disgusted, “not just (at) losing the match and losing my shit, but losing my dignity too. I shunned my closest supporters and cried myself to sleep that night, embarrassed and ashamed.”

“That time, that point in Wimbledon was the lowest of lows in my career,” Barty told the crowd on Wednesday night. “It was the lowest of lows for me as a professional, but also as a person. In that match, I completely turned into something that I never wanted to be.”

Barty spoke to the two year break from tennis she took between 2014-2016. Asked by Dellacqua whether she regretted the decision, Barty said it was the "right decision at the time." 

"Towards the end of the 2014 season, I really started to struggle, and wrestling with myself in what I wanted to do," she said.

"It probably felt like I fell into the world of professional tennis and may have never made the conscious decision to go 'Yep, this is what I want.'"

"That break, that couple of years through 2014-2016, that was the first time that I almost felt like I made an adult decision by myself."

My Dream Time is in book stores now.