Ashleigh Barty is a former professional tennis player and cricketer from Australia and was born on April 24, 1996.
She is the second Australian tennis player, after fellow Indigenous Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley, to be ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), having held the position for a total of 120 weeks.
She was also a top-ten doubles player, reaching a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world. Barty is a three-time Grand Slam singles winner and the current Wimbledon and Australian Open champion.
Barty, who was born in Ipswich, Queensland, began playing tennis at the age of four in nearby Brisbane. She had a great junior career, rising to No. 2 in the world after winning the girls’ singles title at Wimbledon in 2011.
Barty achieved early success in doubles on the WTA Tour as a youngster in 2013, becoming runner-up in three Grand Slam doubles competitions with veteran Casey Dellacqua, including the Australian Open when only 16 years old.
Barty chose to retire from tennis at the end of the 2014 season. Despite having no professional instruction in the sport, she ended up playing cricket during her absence, joining the Brisbane Heat for the first Women’s Big Bash League season.
In early 2016, Barty returned to tennis. In 2017, she had a breakthrough year in singles, earning her maiden WTA title at the Malaysian Open and climbing to No. 17 in the world despite having never been rated in the top 100 before her break.
She also had another productive year in doubles with Dellacqua, ending in her maiden WTA Finals participation in doubles. Barty subsequently won her maiden Premier Mandatory and Grand Slam event championships in doubles in 2018, before repeating the feat in singles in 2019, capped by her French Open triumph.
In 2021, Barty won five additional trophies, including a second major singles victory at the Wimbledon Championships, as well as two WTA 1000 titles. She will have won a major in singles on all three surfaces with her triumph at the 2022 Australian Open.
Barty also guided Australia to a runner-up finish in the 2019 Fed Cup and a bronze medal in mixed doubles at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Ashleigh Barty Awards
Barty Ashleigh is a three-time Grand Slam champion and the world’s top female tennis player.
She also won major titles at Wimbledon (2021) and the French Open (2019). She won 15 singles titles in all.
