Content enough to savour her hoodoo-busting French Open triumph, Ashleigh Barty is playing down her prospects of completing one of tennis’s rarest feats at The All England Club next month.
A Wimbledon junior champion at just 15, Barty will arrive in London for the grass-court major among the favourites after her captivating run to Roland Garros glory.
But in 50 years of professional tennis, only the genuine legends of the game – Margaret Court (1970), Evonne Goolagong Cawley (1971), Billie-Jean King (1972), Chris Evert (1974), Martina Navratilova (1982, 1984), Steffi Graf (1988, 1993, 1995, 1996) and Serena Williams (2002, 2015) – have managed to pull off the clay-to-grass grand slam double.
Little wonder Barty was preferring to enjoy the moment after becoming Australia’s first champion in Paris since Court 46 years ago, rather than making any bold Wimbledon predictions.
“I know I’m playing good tennis (but) Wimbledon is a long way away,” the humble star said in the afterglow of her 6-1 6-3 final win over Marketa Vondrousova on Sunday.
“I feel like I need to – I have to be able to – celebrate this with my team, take a few days off, and make sure I get my body and mind right so that when I come out to play my next tournament I’m ready to go.”
The new world No.2 has chosen not to defend her title in Nottingham, instead opting to launch her grass-court campaign at Birmingham before winding up her Wimbledon preparations at Eastbourne from June 23.
“Obviously I love the grass-court season,” Barty said.
“I’m excited to play over this next month in the UK and hopefully I can bring some really good level of tennis again to potentially give myself a chance to go deep in a major again.”
The great Rod Laver – who tipped Barty to “go all the way” in Paris after she reached the quarter-finals – has no doubt his big-hearted fellow Queenslander has the necessary tools to contend for tennis’s most prestigious trophy from July 1.
“There are some other big girls out there that are big servers and have good ground strokes but Ash is tenacious, has a good drop shot, good angles, good anticipation. I really think she’ll be a tough lady to beat,” Laver said.
The only man to complete the calendar-year grand slam sweep twice noticed a vast improvement in Barty’s game across the past fortnight and believes success in Paris could be just the start of things to come for the 23-year-old.
“It has been our first (win) on clay since 1973,” he said.
“That is pretty good to come back out and have a year away from tennis and get back in there and start playing.
“You could see her concentration has been much better.
“Sometimes before when she missed something she would have a ‘hang dog’ look about her if she missed a forehand.
“She would drop away and maybe think ‘this game is too tough to play’.
“But now everything she hits is perfect.”
Barty was honoured to receive such praise and said meeting Laver on court just before she was handed the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen was a huge moment.
“It was really special,” she said.
“When I saw him a couple of days ago he said he’d shake my hand when I won the tournament and I sort of laughed it off.
“He is an icon of sport globally, not just in tennis and in Australia.
“It’s really amazing to have him there.”
