By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday November 4, 2019
Ashleigh Barty is fired up to begin 2020 as the WTA's World No.1 in Australia.
She’s also a bit scared.
“It scares the hell out of me. It really does,” Barty told WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen on Sunday in Shenzhen when asked to look ahead to the challenge of representing women's tennis as its No.1 player as 2020 kicks off down under. “I'm in a very unique situation [as World No.1], in a very unique position, that at the moment, at this moment in time, no other person on the planet is in my position. I think it's incredibly scary, but it's exciting. I've worked my whole life to try and get to this point to say what it feels like. Each day it brings new challenges. Each day it brings new, exciting things.”
Barty says she is ready to experience the incredible moments of the Aussie summer as one of the favorites at the 2020 Australian Open, but don’t let her choice of words fool you—she’s not going to let expectations or pressure beat her down.
“I feel like the summer in Australia in 2020 is gonna be like nothing I've ever experienced before,” she told Nguyen. “It's gonna be completely new to me.”
Barty says she’ll welcome the increased media exposure and do her best to try and take it in stride.
“You can't hide the fact that the expectations are going to go up and there's gonna be more attention and more written about me, particularly at home,” she said. “That's quite normal, I think. But for me, all that is white noise. The only expectation I honestly have is that I give it a red hot crack. That's all the Aussie public, all my family and all my team can ask of me, is that I give it a go and if it works out great, if it doesn't the sun's still going to come up. We're still going to have another opportunity the following week to try and do something special.
“It's going to be great. It's gonna be special. And there's gonna be probably 50,000 thousand emotions I can share in between those. But it's something that I'm already looking forward to.”
No matter what happens next year Barty can take pride in a brilliant 2019 that saw her win her first major title at Roland Garros, lead the WTA in wins and Top 10 wins and claim the biggest prize money payout in the history of tennis ($4.42 million) at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen.
It was a milestone moment for women’s tennis and one that Barty has not taken lightly.
“I think we have the most beautiful sport, it's a global sport,” Barty said. “Now we're getting more attention. I feel like we've earned that. As [WTA President] Micky [Lawler] has said a million times: We've come from nothing and now we're in this position where we're breaking records. It's very special for our game, the WTA, all of the people behind the scenes that do so much hard work to try to put our sport on the map, try to create more of an interest globally.”