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Australian tennis star Ashleigh Barty has returned to Australia and there is a chance she won't play any events in the rest of the 2021 season. Barty, ranked at No. 1 in the world, pulled out of the upcoming Indian Wells Masters.
The Indian Wells Masters is set to start next week the top-ranked player in the women's game won't be featuring at the event. Barty last played at the US Open, where she suffered a shock third round loss to American Shelby Rogers.
After spending six months on the road, Barty neded a break and decided to return to Australia. “Ash has withdrawn from Indian Wells to come home and see her family in Australia,” Barty’s manager Nikki Mathias said in a statement.
“She has been away from home since March and with the two week hotel quarantine requirement to come into Australia it has not been possible for her to return home before now. “No further decisions have been made on events after Indian Wells yet”.
Barty not a fan of the WTA Finals being staged in Guadalajara
No tennis events will take place in Asia this year so the WTA Finals were recently moved from Shenzhen to Guadalajara. The WTA Finals will return to Shenzhen next year but this year the prestigious season-ending event will take place in Mexico.
"We only just found out it's in Mexico at 1500 metres (above sea level) and they're using pressure-less balls," Barty's coach Craig Tyzzer told AAP. "Pressure-less balls absolutely fly. It's a ball that if you use it in normal conditions, it doesn't bounce.
"I mean, it's not the greatest advertisement for the best girls in the world to be playing something they've never done before. "In conditions they've never played, in a country they don't play and at altitude, I just feel it's ridiculous. "As a spectacle, it's just frightening."