By Greg Baum
To know why Ash Barty is this year's winner of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Don award, you only have to look at her diary.
Last Sunday, she was in Beijing, narrowly losing the final of the China Open to Naomi Osaka, but doing no harm to her prospects of finishing the year as No.1 in the world.
By Wednesday, Barty was with Evonne Goolagong-Cawley in Edmonton, a small town outside Cairns in far north Queensland, coaching budding - and wide-eyed - indigenous tennis players. "This has been the most magical day," she said. "I couldn't think of a better way to spend it."
Barty doesn't let the grass grow under her feet, nor the clay dust up. By Thursday evening, she was in Melbourne, in a ball gown, to be invested as the winner of the Don, for the sportsperson who by performance and example has most inspired the nation in the last year.
She beat wheelchair tennis star Dylan Alcott, retiring Sydney Roosters premiership star Cooper Cronk, three-time Tour de France stage winner Caleb Ewan, surfing champ Stephanie Gilmore, Bathurst winner Craig Lowndes, cricketers Ellyse Perry and Tim Paine, and world swimming champion Ariarne Titmus, and none would quibble for a minute.
Barty is Australia's least pretentious superstar, maybe in any walk of life. "My parents taught me that being a good person is the most important thing in life," she said. "I try and live by that every day.
Wednesday: Talking tennis during a clinic in Cairns with youngsters.Credit: Getty Images
"When I started playing tennis, my first coach, Jim Joyce, had four rules: be a nice person, respect people and be respected, have fun - and if you can play tennis that's a bonus. These are still with me today.
"At the end of the day, tennis is a game and it is meant to be fun. I try to walk away with a smile even after a tough day."
She's had tough days. She was good young, but the touring life drained her and in 2015 she took a year off tennis to play ably for Brisbane Heat in cricket's Big Bash League. When she returned to tennis, she was ranked in the 600s. That was barely three years ago.
Barty applied herself without ever making a big deal of it, until in June this year she won the French Open after playing a nearly faultless final, her first major and Australia's first winner of that tournament for nearly 50 years.
Thursday: On the red carpet at the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala Dinner.Credit: Getty Images
Victory in the Birmingham Classic a couple of weeks later established her as world No. 1, only the second Australian woman so rated since rankings were introduced in 1973. The other was Goolagong-Cawley. With only moderate luck, she will finish the year there.
"I am so proud of my team and I for what we have achieved," she said. "We have worked hard, experienced some amazing highs and lows and enjoyed every bit of the journey." "We, us": that's Barty, ever deflecting. The others played their parts, no doubt, but it was her out there alone with the racquet. She did it.
She's not quite done. Next month in Perth, Barty will appear in yet another guise, her favourite. It's France and the Fed Cup final. "The perfect way for me to finish 2019 would be with a win representing Australia in the Fed Cup," she said. "Then I'll be ready to celebrate."
Gala event: The Don Award finalists Cooper Cronk, Dylan Alcott and Ash Barty.Credit: AAP
Also on Thursday night, wheelchair racer Louise Sauvage became the first Paralympian to be elevated to official Legend. This seemed not only right, but overdue. Until Kurt Fearnley, winner of last year's Don came along, Sauvage was not only the face, but the image and embodiment of para-sport in Australia.
Sauvage competed at four Olympics, winning nine gold medals to add to 12 world championship golds. It would have been more except that she was before her time and for half her career had to content herself with wins in demonstration events.
"It should be that para-sport athletes can be seen and considered in the same light and be recognised in the same manner so to be elevated is just huge," she said. "It's tremendous and to be thought of alongside some of Australia's great athletes, it's just amazing."
Completing Thursday's roll call, Matt Cowdrey, Russell Mark, Robbie McEwan, Stephanie Rice, Cheryl Salisbury and Emma Snowsill were welcomed as members of the Hall of Fame, not to forget the legendary caller Dennis Cometti.