(Tennis news) Current World No 1 Ashleigh Barty shocked the world when the 25 year old announced her retirement. The news sent shockwaves, not just in the tennis world but throughout the sporting industry because less than two months ago, she won the Australian Open for her third Grand Slam singles title and became the first Australian player in 44 years to triumph at the nation's Grand Slam tournament.

This is not the first time Barty has walked away from tennis. She was the Wimbledon junior champion at age 15 in 2011 and looked like she would choose tennis as her professional sport  but left the tour entirely for nearly two years in 2014 because of burnout, as she was overwhelmed by the pressure and travel required during the tours. She came back home and started playing professional cricket in Australia, then eventually picked up a racket once again and returned to tennis. 

Barty went on to win her first singles major championships on three different surfaces, first on clay at the 2019 French Open, then on grass at Wimbledon last year and recently won on the hard courts at Melbourne Park in January. Barty has gone on to win 15 tour level titles in singles and another 12 in doubles since first turning pro in 2010. She has spent 121 weeks at No. 1 in the rankings, including the past 114 in a row, which is quite an achievement since the women’s draw is quite competitive and open.

Her announcement was all the more shocking from an on-court perspective given that her recent run of success was quite extraordinary: Barty had won 25 of her past 26 matches and three of her past four events she participated in. Only one other woman who has walked away from the sport while being at the top of the WTA rankings was Justine Henin who was the former No. 1 when she retired in May 2008, after she spent around  61 weeks ranked at the top. Henin was also 25 at the time of her retirement, but she came back two years after her announcement, reaching the final of the 2010 Australian Open before stepping away for good in 2011.

"I'm so happy and I'm so ready. I just know at the moment, in my heart, for me as a person, this is right," Barty said. “It's the first time I've actually said it out loud and, yeah, it's hard to say.'' Barty said of her decision to retire, which she announced during an informal interview with her former doubles partner, Casey Dellacqua, "I don't have the physical drive, the emotional want and everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top of the level any more. I am spent.''

"I know I've done this before,'' Barty said with a laugh in the retirement video, "but with a very different feeling. I'm so grateful to everything that tennis has given me. It's given me all of my dreams, plus more, but I know that the time is right now for me to step away and chase other dreams and to, yeah, put the rackets down.'

"I'll never, ever, ever stop loving tennis,'' she said. "It will always be a massive part of my life, but now I think it's important I get to enjoy the next phase of my life as Ash Barty the person, not Ash Barty the athlete.'

"I am so supportive of Ash that she does what makes her happy,'' Goolagong Cawley told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I can't wait to see what happens in the next chapter of Ash's life, and what helps her achieve her dreams.''