Ash Barty will return to tennis after over two years away when she appears at Wimbledon in this year’s invitational doubles.
The event features retired players and Barty, still only 28, will play with her former doubles partner Casey Dellacqua, with whom she reached four Grand Slam doubles finals — including the Wimbledon final in 2013.
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Barty remains hugely popular with the Wimbledon crowds and the wider tennis community after her early departure from the sport in March 2022, when she was 25-years-old, world No. 1, and had just won 25 matches in 26. She was also fresh from winning her home Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open, having become the second Indigenous woman to ever win Wimbledon in 2021, following Evonne Goolagong Cawley.
While that 2022 Australian Open was her third Grand Slam title, it was winning Wimbledon the year before that made Barty feel complete as a tennis player, prompting her to begin considering retirement.
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“I just had that gut feeling after Wimbledon and had spoken to my team quite a lot about it,” she said when she called it quits.
Barty had actually left the sport once before, as a teenager between 2014 and 2016, after feeling burnt out from top-level tennis. During her sabbatical she played professional cricket and earned a contract with the Brisbane Heat of the Women’s Big Bash League for the 2015-16 season. Having just turned 20, Barty returned to singles tennis in May 2016.
Since retiring two years ago, Barty has once again demonstrated her sporting versatility by pursuing her passion for golf. She plays off a handicap of four and has headlined a number of Pro-Am events, including the New Zealand Open earlier this year.
Speaking about linking up with Barty again at Wimbledon, Dellacqua, 39 told The AO Show Weekly: “What an opportunity to be able to play with my best mate, to be honest with you.
“We’re just going to have a great time and enjoy being back together on a tennis court, which we have loved to do our whole life. She has 13 years or something on me (it’s 11) so she can do all the running around and I’ll just hit a few in.”
(Simon Bruty / Anychance via Getty Images)