Ashleigh Barty (born 24 April 1996) is an Australian professional tennis player and former cricketer. She is ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and is the second Australian WTA singles No. 1 after Evonne Goolagong Cawley. She is also a top 20 player in doubles, having achieved a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world. Barty has won seven singles titles and ten doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including a Grand Slam singles title at the 2019 French Open, a Grand Slam doubles title at the 2018 US Open (with CoCo Vandeweghe) and the 2019 WTA Finals singles title.
Born in Ipswich in Queensland, Barty began playing tennis at the age of four in nearby Brisbane. She had a promising junior career, reaching a career-high ranking of No. 2 in the world after winning the girls’ singles title at Wimbledon in 2011. As a teenager, Barty had early success in doubles on the WTA Tour in 2013, finishing runner-up at three Grand Slam doubles events with veteran Casey Dellacqua, including at the Australian Open while still only 16 years old. Late in the 2014 season, Barty decided to take an indefinite break from tennis. She ended up playing cricket during this hiatus, signing with the Brisbane Heat for the inaugural Women’s Big Bash League season despite having no formal training in the sport.
Barty returned to tennis in early 2016; although she won her first tournament back on the ITF circuit, her year was ultimately marred by an arm injury. In 2017, Barty had a breakout year in singles, winning her first WTA title at the Malaysian Open and rising to No. 17 in the world despite having never been ranked inside the top 100 before her time off. She also had another prolific year in doubles with Dellacqua, culminating in her first appearance at the WTA Finals in doubles. She then won her first Premier Mandatory and Grand Slam tournament titles in doubles in 2018 before accomplishing the same feat in singles in 2019.
Barty is an all-court player who employs a wide variety of shots into her style of play. Despite her short stature, she is an excellent server, regularly ranking among the WTA Tour’s leaders in aces and percentage of service points won. Barty is an Indigenous Australian and serves as the National Indigenous Tennis Ambassador for Tennis Australia.
Pegula is of part Korean descent; she is the older daughter of a South Korean mother, Kim Pegula and the middle daughter of American professional sports investor and natural gas tycoon Terry Pegula. Pegula resides in West Palm Beach, FL. In August 2016, it was announced that Pegula and her sister would be opening a quick serve restaurant called Healthy Scratch in LECOM Harborcenter, an ice hockey themed mixed-use development owned by her parents in Buffalo, New York. The Healthy Scratch business was to be expanded to food truck service in 2017. In 2017, Pegula introduced her own skincare line called Ready 24. On August 30, 2011, Pegula was granted a wildcard into the main draw of the US Open doubles tournament where she was paired with Taylor Townsend. They eventually lost in the third round to the third-seeded team of Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova.