Ashleigh Barty wears her losses well and carries her victories lightly. Her game is a spread of surgical skills, while her mentality, sunny most times, can retreat behind a dark cloud on the biggest stages.
The 25-year-old Aussie, a no-fuss, no-frills winner, is looking to spark the stage in her final dances of the fortnight.
The world No. 1 heads the semifinal cast at Wimbledon, which has three of the top-eight women, including the second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka and the eighth-seeded Karolina Pliskova.
Angelique Kerber, the 2018 champion, will take on Barty in a match of small margins.
Barty, who won the junior girls title here in 2011 as a 15-year-old, walked away from tennis three years later as her journey temporarily ran out of mental miles. She took her leg off the pedal, tried different things, including cricket, using her time away to recharge her competitive batteries.
The 2019 Roland Garros champion looks at pressure a tad differently now. The moments that matter.
“For me, it’s not a fact of liking it, disliking it, being overwhelmed,” she said of the attention. “To have people enjoying the tennis with me, makes it all the more fun. There are memories on tennis courts. Some are heart-breaking and some you never forget.”
Now, some four months since Barty left Australia to compete on the WTA Tour, she finds herself in her first Wimbledon semifinal.
“I’m in touch with my family. I know they’re watching. That, to me, is all that matters,” she said of the headlines she’s making back home.
“I know the people that I love and the people that love me back are watching. They’re living through this journey with me. I don’t read the papers. I don’t see that white noise as such. It doesn’t faze me. It’s not something that I focus on.”
The 25-year-old, sporting an outfit that honours her mentor Evonne Goolagong Cawley in her 50th anniversary of her charge to the title, is two matches away from holding the Venus Rosewater Dish, the winner’s prize.
“It (the trophy) is downstairs, in a case before the court entrance,” she said, not much unlike how she gets down to the ball to strike one of her trademark sliced backhands.
“I can’t say that I’ve gone up and kind of peered in. Maybe one day I’ll get an opportunity to look at it.”
