Ashleigh Barty was 15 when she won the junior women’s title at Wimbledon, ten years ago. Such early victories are wonderful, for many the first big event of a career, but there is no guarantee that it will turn out to be a very big one.
In more than fifty years of the professional era, there are only two winners in the All England Club’s list of winners, Martina Hingis and Amélie Mauresmo, who not only won the small but later also the big ones. There are a few more among the colleagues: Björn Borg, Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg and Roger Federer, who together later achieved a remarkable 16 titles, half of them for the Swiss champion.
But back to Ashleigh Barty. Winning that title ten years ago was indeed very special, she once said, but it was nothing more than a foretaste. The Australian’s example shows well enough that there is no straight path to a goal and that it depends on how to overcome obstacles.
Ashleigh Barty is currently number one in the world rankings.
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Image: dpa
Just like three years after her victory at Wimbledon, when she felt lonely and overwhelmed on the tennis tour and, with a good dose of courage, decided to end the tennis chapter for the time being. Instead, she played cricket for the women’s team of the Brisbane Heat for two years and found the fun of the sport again. After that, she felt strong enough to return to the tennis court and immediately won nine of her first eleven games.
“Never lost faith in me”
That was indeed a brave decision by Ash Barty at the time, believes Angelique Kerber, who will play against the Australian in the semi-finals this Thursday from 2.30 p.m. In the difficult times, could she have last imagined putting the bat down for a while to sort herself out and renew her feelings?
Well, she says, not exactly. “I didn’t play for months last year, but thinking about stopping until I feel better, these thoughts were never there. Of course it wasn’t an easy time, but I never lost faith in myself, in my team. Now I’m in the semi-finals and the journey isn’t over yet. “
And she’s actually been on the road for a long time. A year after Barty won the junior women’s division, Angelique Kerber played in the big semi-finals for the first time, but her friend Agnieszka Radwańska from Poland won. She remembers her good games in 2012, how proud she was of them, and the thought: Okay, this is actually the beginning of the journey. It was her second semifinal in a Grand Slam tournament after the US Open the year before.
Accurate: Angelique Kerber played herself into a frenzy at Wimbledon.
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Image: AFP
But that was all a long time ago, now it’s about the next attempt and the great prospect of landing in the final of the championships for the third time. “So much has happened in recent years that I’m just looking forward to it and am incredibly grateful that I got the chance again,” she says. Things and experiences that you had to do without for a while are becoming more important, that’s how it is in life, isn’t it?
Wimbledon was always Barty’s dream
Ashleigh Barty is just as happy. She says that winning Wimbledon was always her dream, but it took a long time before she had the courage to talk about this dream out loud and for everyone to hear. “But that’s exactly what I want and what I work for.” She also knows what it feels like to win a Grand Slam title since it premiered two years ago at the Stade Roland Garros.
A few weeks ago she was doing less well in Paris when she had to retire in the second round due to a hip injury and it was questionable whether she would be fit again by Wimbledon. She has not played on grass in any of the pre-season tournaments, but has trained at the All England Club and so far she seems to have been missing nothing. She only gave up a set in the first round, and especially when she appeared in the round of 16 against the French Open winner Barbora Krejčíková, she was both combative and convincing.
Barty and Kerber agree that no conclusions can be drawn about the fifth from the course of the four games they have played together so far; the last one was already three years ago. Since then, the cards have been reshuffled several times, it’s all about the here and now and the thoughts that are associated with it. Barty says the prospect of this semi-finals is neither terrifying nor overwhelming, but exciting.
Exciting because of the challenge of playing against someone who is comfortable on the course and who knows how to win the tournament. Both of them will not lack courage, Angelique Kerber is pretty sure of that. “One should always have courage in life and not be guided by fear. I think that’s really what I’ve learned in recent years, that fear is the enemy of each of us. ”The best prerequisites for a gripping game and an encounter at eye level.
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