Ashleigh Barty is in London this week after accepting to play at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships Invitational in doubles, and she spoke to the press after her match.
The Australian retired from tennis a couple of years ago after winning the 2022 Australian Open. Barty simply grew tired of the sport, wanting to start a family and spend time in her native country.
It's a decision she hasn't regretted, but she returned to the courts this week at Wimbledon, partnering with her former doubles partner Casey Dellacqua.
The former World No. 1 on the WTA Tour was overtaken by Iga Switek when she retired from the sport. During her press conference at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, following her win over Magdalena Rybarikova and Andrea Petkovic, 5-7, 6-3, 10-7, the former Australian player was asked whether it ever crosses her mind how she would compare to the Polish player had they competed together.
"No, no it doesn’t. I’ve had such a fulfilling journey and I really enjoy watching others doing well. Obviously we’ve seen Iga dominate, for the most part, of the last two and a half years."
"She’s been incredible. The way she’s had composure and has gone on incredible runs of winning matches and really dominating which is hard to do."
The type of dominance we're seeing from Swiatek is something we saw from Barty for a while. She knows well what it takes to get there, and it's not only one thing. It's a combination of things including discipline and hard work with a little bit of talent sprinkled in.
"It takes discipline. It takes hard work. It takes talent. It takes the ability to put it all together. It’s been really impressive watching from afar. I don’t know the ins and outs."
"I haven’t been following that closely. But I just know she’s always there when it matters most in the big moments, which has been really impressive."
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