Best of friends: Ash Barty and Evonne Goolagong Cawley
The bond between Ash Barty and Evonne Goolagong Cawley goes far beyond tennis.
On a one-lane country road surrounded by sugarcane fields with the green tops of the Macalister Range towering behind them, Australian tennis star Ash Barty is giggling with glee as she teaches her mentor Evonne Goolagong Cawley a new trick. It’s a scene that brings some relief to her father Robert Barty. Just the day before this trip to Cairns he’d noted that his youngest daughter looked as exhausted as he’d ever seen her, though that’s scarcely a surprise. The world No.1 arrived in Far North Queensland via flights from Beijing to Melbourne and then to Brisbane, where she snuck a quick nap before picking up her dad for an early morning flight to Cairns.
The 23-year-old had just completed another stellar week, reaching the final of the China Open after titanic struggles against friends Petra Kvitova and Kiki Bertens before falling to Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka in a tight tussle. Barty’s extraordinary year – in which she won the French Open and claimed the top women’s spot – will close when she leads Australia in the Fed Cup final against France next weekend in Perth. But she’s found time to come to Cairns to host a clinic for indigenous children with friend and mentor Goolagong Cawley, the former No. 1 who claimed 13 majors in the ’70s and early ’80s.
And so we find ourselves in sugarcane country where, for all her travels, Goolagong Cawley, 68, tells the Bartys she’s never had sugar straight from the cane. Cue Rob stomping into a nearby field and foraging through the canes until he finds a plant ripe enough for her to get a taste of the far north. “It was a new experience for me and, actually, it was delicious,” Goolagong Cawley says. “You learn something new every day, my mother always used to say to me. And today I learnt something new from Ash.”
Even when bent over with laughter at her dad’s bush bashing, Barty is as swift with her phone as she is on a tennis court. It’s not long before clips of the antics are circulating to friends thousands of kilometres away. “The first time I tasted sugarcane was when I was eight or nine,” Barty says. “I was visiting family in north Queensland, because dad is from north Queensland. For him, it was, ‘Ash, come and taste this. This is incredible.’ And just that experience, it seems silly, but being able to taste a little bit of what Queensland is like and what north Queensland is like is incredible and I couldn’t believe Evonne had never done it. It was a really cool way to bond.”
The friendship between Goolagong the Wiradjuri woman and Barty the Ngaragu woman extends beyond a decade. Besides their shared love of tennis, their indigenous backgrounds are a vital part of their lives that they continue to explore. “Deep down, we are friends,” Barty says. “But most importantly, we are family. That is something not many people can say, and we share that really special heritage, which is probably the most special thing about our relationship.”
Goolagong Cawley honed her craft using a wooden paddle in the township of Barellan in NSW, hitting old balls against water tanks or brick walls or anything else that would provide a rebound. The garage in Barty’s home near Ipswich was her biggest rival; she would pound balls against a wall backing on to the living room. “It used to do mum and dad’s head in, because… I’d spend hours and hours and hours just hitting the ball against the wall. That is where my passion and love for tennis came in,” Barty says.
Goolagong Cawley, who, like Barty, won her first grand slam title at Roland-Garros in Paris, first set eyes on the youngster when she was 12 but it was while watching her Australian Open debut in 2012, when Barty was just 15, that her heart skipped a beat. A seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, Goolagong Cawley is considered one of the most stylish players to grace a court, and is entranced by those of similar ilk. “I did not watch tennis during my early days [of retirement from the sport] at all,” she says. “And then Roger Federer came along and I thought, ‘Oh, look at those skills’. But I wished there was a girl or a woman who could come along and learn all those skills too and be able to base their game on Federer. And then along came Ash and I thought, ‘Fantastic’.
“I remember seeing her for the first time during the Australian Open… and I saw one point and she had every shot involved in that one point and all the skills came out and, even though she lost that match, I just knew she had it. I have been waiting for her to develop even more as a player and here she is. She is amazing. When I watch her, I feel she is happy out there. She loves doing what she is doing. That is when I played really well, when I was completely happy. Tennis, for me, every time I went out on the court, it just gave me such joy to play.”
Barty’s sabbatical from tennis is well known. The winner of the 2011 Junior Wimbledon title, she’d also enjoyed a fruitful partnership in doubles with Casey Dellacqua, who is a close friend. The pair reached three grand slam doubles finals in 2013. But by the time she arrived in New York for the 2014 US Open, Barty, a true homebody, ached for the comforts and company of family – parents Rob and Josie, and sisters Sara and Ali – and friends in Queensland. A life spent touring the globe might sound glamorous, but players rarely see much more than a hotel room and tournament complex, as Tennis Australia found a couple of years ago when surveying players at the French Open. Scarcely any of them had seen the Eiffel Tower, despite visiting Paris several times.
Feeling burnt out, Barty thought there was more to life than what she was experiencing. Speaking to a class of indigenous students at Bentley Park College on her visit to Cairns last month, Barty told them that studying was a tool that helped her find her way again. “I was burnt out. I stopped playing when I was 17 years old. I thought my tennis was over. It was done. I was unhappy and I had no passion and no drive,” she said. “I went back to studying… and did a small business degree and tried playing cricket for a bit but, ultimately, I fell back in love with tennis and realised I missed it and that was when I fully invested properly. I enjoy it so much more now than I ever did, knowing that I have put absolutely everything into it and I have done the best that I can. I am trying to be the best that I can be, knowing that this is one phase of my life.”
Goolagong Cawley was among those who stepped in to offer support during Barty’s break from the sport. “When Ash decided to give tennis away the first time because she’d had enough and we never thought she would go back, the first text message she got from anyone was from Evonne,” Rob says. “And Evonne said to her, ‘Good decision, darl. Go and wet a line and catch a few fish’. They have been in touch all the time.”
“I went through a tough time after leaving tennis,” Goolagong Cawley says. “I didn’t know what was happening to me. I was just feeling really down and didn’t want to play tennis anymore and when I was feeling down like that, what helped me is that I went back to my culture. To walk the Earth. I went through women’s business. They taught me a lot. They were mostly laughing – laughing at my expressions, probably – and they explained a lot to me; I understand more of the culture now than I ever did.”
Ash believes, rightly so, that Evonne is the role model she wants to be, but she’s had other people, besides her family, who have helped shape her into the quietly dignified person on and off the court that she is today. When Barty’s first coach Jim Joyce saw her as a little girl, he felt she was too small to play. But then he saw her scamper after the third ball he tossed to her with great eagerness and thought better of it. Rob says Joyce has taught his daughter life lessons far more important than how to put topspin on a forehand or punch a volley. “The first one was to be happy. The second one was to be a nice person. The third one was to show respect and be respected. And the fourth one was that if you can play tennis after that, it is a bonus. The first thing he asks Ash is, ‘Are you happy?’ and ‘Are you having fun?’ She tries to instil that herself when she is talking with people – that it is the most important thing, to be a nice person.”
Barty has ticked off the milestones since her winning return in a low-key doubles event in Perth with partner Jess Moore in February 2016. Her progression through the ranks had been strong and steady until it became spectacular this year. A quarter-final appearance at the Australian Open in January was a hint of what was to come. She signalled herself as a major contender-in-waiting when winning the Miami Open in March. In a true golden period, a maiden grand slam triumph at the French Open followed and she then claimed the world’s No.1 ranking after a win in Birmingham, a position she has largely held since.
Placing her trust in others has been a key to finding success and happiness. There is no place for an “I” in “Team Barty”, a group that includes her coach Craig Tyzzer, her agent Nikki Craig and performance coach Ben Crowe. “[I knew] if I wanted to create a dream for myself and give myself the best opportunity, I needed to fully invest in that, to trust the people around me and just really give it a crack,” she says. “I needed to become vulnerable and know that if I did that, and there are no certainties in life, but being able to make that transition and make that decision as to what I was going to do, it made me feel free and made me feel empowered.”
It is said that grand slam success changes life forever. Certainly it has raised expectations and demands for Barty. In the days after her French Open triumph the Tennis Australia media department received more than 150 requests seeking her involvement in all manner of dealings. “Once you win a grand slam and once you become No.1 in the world, your emails, your social media goes into meltdown,” her father says.
But that hasn’t changed the way she goes about her business. Team Barty is determined to make things as normal as possible. “We know her time is precious so we move our lives a little bit around her, because we don’t see her that often,” says Rob. “But it is not like, ‘I’ll take you to the shop because you are Ash Barty’ or any of that rubbish. It just doesn’t happen. When she got to No.1 in the world, she got a message from Casey and Case said to her, ‘Hey, congratulations mate. I hope you still talk to me now that you are No.1’. And Ash said to her, ‘Well, you can cut that crap out’. And that is Ash. That is what she is like.”
Is Goolagong Cawley a legend because she won seven grand slams? Or is it because of the work she has done since in sending dozens of indigenous athletes to schools on scholarships, among other activities undertaken by her foundation?
It is not only in her sport that Barty is following the trail blazed by Goolagong Cawley. Kids around the world will look to her manner and excellence on a tennis court, but the true brilliance of Barty might come after an already brilliant career is complete, given her interest in assisting indigenous children with literacy and education.
“When I first met Evonne, I was gobsmacked,” Ash says. “She is this incredible lady who had a remarkable career, she really did. And for us, our culture and our heritage, it is really special to know that she has paved the way for so many people. When I was a bit older, I began to understand just how much of an impact she truly had… how much time and energy she has invested into creating opportunities for all indigenous youth across the nation.”
Barty became interested in her heritage when Rob, who worked in economic and social development in indigenous communities throughout Queensland for more than three decades, was explaining their background to her older sisters. His grandmother was a Ngaragu woman from the NSW-Victoria border. “I would have been eight or nine at the time and it was when my sisters had a special interest and, curious as I am, I wanted to know more and more about it,” she says. “I am still learning. I am still educating myself every day about just how special it is to share that heritage with the land. I feel most at home when I am with the people that I love, those who understand you. It’s a really special bond.”
Just as Goolagong Cawley proved an inspiration to her, Barty is now inspiring indigenous youth – like Mikayla Zahirovic, 16, who is attending Pymble Ladies’ College in Sydney on a scholarship courtesy of the Evonne Goolagong Foundation. “When Ash won the French Open,” says Zahirovic, “there was a group of us at school and we sat in front of the TV and we were all so super-pumped when she won it, we were jumping about. Just to see another Australian win a grand slam is so exciting, but to see an indigenous person after Evonne, it was amazing.”
Barty is determined to leave a broader legacy than the one she is cultivating on the tennis court, and has a clear vision. “I worked with all the remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around Queensland and for Ash, it is one of her passions,’’ Rob says. “She is looking at a program where she can help the remote communities with literacy and education. Once she has finished, I imagine that will be her path.”
Until then, there’s more tennis to be played before Barty and her partner Garry Kissick take a break to celebrate a stunning year. One major goal for 2019 is next weekend’s Fed Cup final, as the nation bids to win the prestigious teams competition for the first time in 45 years. The last time it occurred was in 1974 when Goolagong Cawley was the team leader. At 23, she was the age Barty is now. “To have a Fed Cup final in Perth, and for me personally, to finish off what has been the most magical year, it is an incredible opportunity and something I am really, really looking forward to,” says Barty. “What a way to try to cap off the year.”
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