Ash Barty has the answers to the two questions we all ask ourselves

Even though this year is shaping up to be yet another wild ride, I still didn’t have Ash Barty joining the Great Resignation on my 2022 bingo card.

Ranked world number one, a three-time major singles champion at the top of her game, set for even more and — most shocking of all only 25 years of age — Barty said she was done. And she shared the news with her customary ease and calm confidence.

The very notion of retirement would be preposterous and surely a cover for a darker reason if it came from anybody but her, a woman whose self-knowledge is so complete she is almost transparent.

After her thrilling Australian Open championship in January, I interviewed Barty’s intriguing «mind coach» Ben Crowe, who plays a key role in her tight-knit team. Listening back, maybe the clues were all there: tennis is what she does, he told me — but it's not who she is.

«Ash has been on a beautiful journey and done an enormous amount of heavy lifting to work out who she is and find that unconditional sense of self…,» he said. «When you know who you are, and you can own your story… you don't get distracted by these expectations of others or expectations of outcome.»

Barty had figured out how to answer, Crowe said, the two key questions we all have to confront: Who am I? And, what am I here to do?

I know it wasn’t just me who experienced her light and happy renunciation of all the crowns and jewels of world tennis as a thunderbolt. Like so many others I rushed to social media to join international congratulations but what I most wanted to say was how I loved that Barty could walk away from something so assuredly when it was no longer making her happy.

Is Barty the only sportsperson we’ve ever known and loved this well who has been able to identify