Wimbledon winner Barty now wants Olympic gold

With a first Wimbledon title safely in the bag, world No 1 Ashleigh Barty is now setting her sights on securing an Olympic gold medal.

The 25-year-old won her second Grand Slam title on Saturday after beating Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 at the All England club. The victory meant Barty emulated her idol and Australian great Evonne Goolagong, who triumphed at the grasscourt major in 1971.

And Barty, who won the 2019 French Open, now heads into the Tokyo Games aiming to join Steffi Graf (1988), Venus Williams (2000) and sister Serena (2012) as the only women in the Open era to win Wimbledon and Olympic singles gold in the same year.

“Being able to represent Australia at the Olympics is going to be an awesome experience and it’s important over this next period to celebrate the fact we’ve achieved something really special at Wimbledon,” Barty said, as she targets the Olympic competition in Japan that begins on July 24.

“I have a lot of other goals, dreams that are in my mind and within my team and we’ll certainly reset in the next couple of days ... enjoy some time together and then we go again. But I’m really looking forward to the Olympics.”

Barty also said it was a “miracle” she even had the chance to play at Wimbledon after a hip injury forced her to retire in the second round at Roland Garros last month.

“The fact that we were physically able to get through the past fortnight has been exceptional. I had the most incredible team of people around me,” she added.

“In the last six weeks I’ve cried a lot. A lot of it was through heartbreak at the French [Open] and now, through a sense of joy and happiness and how much everything has changed.

“We said from the French there will be a silver lining and we’ve found it.”