Freshly retired world number one tennis player Ash Barty has said that part of her next chapter will be focused on inspiring kids to take up sport.
The three-time grand slam winner told reporters on Thursday that she'll always be connected with tennis, but from now on it won’t be for herself.
“I mean I hit as recently as ten days ago. I‘ll never stop loving the sport. I’ll never stop hitting tennis balls,” the 25-year-old said.
“I just won’t be doing it selfishly for me to try and ... progress my career. It'll be for different reasons and I can’t wait to get out there with young girls and young boys and contribute in different ways.
“And I can’t wait to get out on court and teach my nieces and nephews, and hope that tennis brings them the same love that it brought me,” she said.
This comes after the current Wimbledon and Australian Open champion announced her retirement from professional competition on Wednesday via a video on Instagram, telling her friend Casey Dellacqua, also a retired professional player, that it was time to put her racquet down.
“It’s hard to say, but I’m so happy and I’m so ready,” she said. “And I just know at the moment in my heart for me as a person this is right.”
Barty told Dellacqua that she had a perspective shift in the latter part of her career, a realisation that her happiness wasn’t dependent on getting results, but rather success was was knowing that she'd given everything she had.
“I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself, and I’ve said it to my team multiple times, it’s just I don’t have that in me anymore,” she said.
Barty said she had other dreams, one of which she confirmed on Thursday was continuing to contribute to Indigenous Australians in sport.
“I’m really excited for that. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to give Indigenous youth around our nation more opportunity to get into sport, and that’s something we'll be working on down the track,” she said.
Barty hit the ball with local kids from the Mutitjulu School with the iconic Uluru as a backdrop.
“These kids today, there’s 15, 16 kids that had never picked up a tennis racquet. Just a couple of days ago was the first time they picked up a racquet and I think providing that opportunity is so exciting for me,” she told NITV.
“And that’s part of my role, is to provide those opportunities to help kids get involved in the sport because that’s what lights me up the most, is seeing them smile, try something new for the first time, and do it.”
