Australian Open Winner Ashleigh Barty on Making a Difference After a Challenging Year

It’s only now back on home soil in Queensland, many months later, that Barty is taking the time to exhale and process her most challenging—and rewarding—year yet. The devastating injury that sidelined her French Open, followed by her epic Wimbledon victory and fulfilling a lifelong dream to compete at the Olympic Games (where she won a bronze in the mixed doubles), all played out against the unpredictable backdrop of Covid.

Speaking to Vogue a few weeks before what is only the second cover shoot she’s ever done, Barty is only now putting it all into words. “Looking back now, if anyone had said to us in March of 2020 that this is what the next 18 months are going to look like for you and the rest of the world, I think you would have to smile, you’d have to laugh, you’d probably have to cry a bit and think, ‘these are the cards we’ve been dealt.’ In my personal adventure this last year, I feel like we’ve made the most of it,” she opens up.

“Once I was able to let go and accept it was going to be a year unlike any other, it was all about enjoying the adventure. And accepting everything for what it was and trying to find a way to enjoy the hard challenges, knowing there were going to be some really fundamental lessons to be learned.”

“It genuinely was a rollercoaster,” continues Barty. “I think there were probably five or six matches that I felt defined my year all through different stages, all for different reasons, very few of them were about the tennis. It’s impossible to compare it to other years, but certainly from a personal growth perspective, being able to put it all together and come away with probably one of my most successful seasons on tour was incredible.”

Barty was overseas for a six-month stretch in 2021, during which time she won five titles and rounded out her season as number one for the third consecutive year, becoming only the eighth woman in history to do so. Life on tour, she says, was spent in a Covid bubble 90 percent of the time and consisted of traveling from hotels to tennis courts and back again, regardless of the city. She had more than 70 negative tests over that period, allowing her to play.

“I found that routine a lot easier to adjust to because I was able to play some really good tennis and feel busy, so I think that was a blessing playing a lot of matches earlier,” she reveals. “I became invested in our processes and sometimes when you get on a roll you find some real grit and determination. I felt like I was able to do that really well early on in the season. We had some challenges without a doubt—some tough injuries and moments where, in my mind, I thought it was all going to come crumbling down. But I’m incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by amazing people who care for me as a human first before me as a tennis player.”