Barty captures women’s singles crown

NEWLY crowned champion Ash Barty said it was miracle she even had the chance to emulate her idol Evonne Goolagong at Wimbledon this year after a race against time to recover from the hip injury she suffered at the French Open.

The 25-year-old marked the 50th anniversary of fellow Australian Goolagong’s first Wimbledon title by beating Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-3 in a nervy Centre Court final.

It was an emotional day for Barty as she became the first Australian woman to win Wimbledon since Goolagong triumphed for a second time in 1980. But she revealed how close she came to missing the tournament after aggravating her hip problem during her second round match at Roland Garros against Magda Linette.

“Just even chatting to my team now, once we’ve come off the court, they kept a lot of cards close to their chest and didn’t tell me a lot of the odds,” Barty, who added the Wimbledon title to her 2019 French Open crown, told reporters. “They didn’t tell me a lot of the information that they’d got from other specialists. There weren’t too many radiologists in Australia who had seen my injury.

“In a sense, it was a twomonth injury. Being able to be able to play here at Wimbledon was nothing short of a miracle. Certainly now chatting to them it looked a lot less likely than I felt statistically. I think it’s been an incredible month.”

It has been a long and winding road for Barty since she won the girls’ title, aged 15, in 2011.

She gave up the game in 2014 to concentrate on cricket before returning in 2016. During the pandemic she spent nearly a year off the Tour before returning in January to continue her quest to write her name amongst the Australian greats.

“The stars aligned for me over the past fortnight. Incredible that it happened to fall on the 50th Anniversary of Evonne’s first title here, too, is absolutely incredible,” the Queenslander, who has not been home in Australia since March, said.

Barty has appeared like a woman on a mission this year at the All England Club as she set her sights on emulating trailblazer Goolagong, with whom she shares indigenous Australian heritage.

She has even worn a scalloped-edged outfit in the style of Goolagong’s 1970s kit.