📍Ipswich QLD 4305, Australia
1996 – 2012“Ashleigh Barty was born in Ipswich, Queensland, in April 1996 and grew up in Springfield, a new, fast-growing suburb on the edge of Ipswich, west of Brisbane. Her father, Robert, is an Indigenous Ngarigo man, and her mother, Josie, is the daughter of English immigrants; she has two older sisters, Ali and Sara, who played netball. Her parents told the girls they could not run three children around two sports, so Ash chose tennis, partly because her sisters were better at netball. When she was four, her parents took her to the West Brisbane Tennis Centre to see coach Jim Joyce, who usually only took children of eight or older; but she showed such focus and hand-eye coordination that he made an exception, and he remained her coach throughout her childhood. She practised every day after school, hitting a ball against the wall outside the family's living room for hours, and by nine she was playing against boys six years older. She went to Woodcrest State College in Springfield, and she was a shy, grounded girl who loved her family and her local community. In 2011, at fifteen, she won the Wimbledon girls' title. A few years later, burnt out by the pressure, she took a break to play professional cricket with the Brisbane Heat, before returning to tennis. In 2019 she won the French Open and became world number one; she won Wimbledon in 2021 and her home Australian Open in 2022, and then, at the top, retired at twenty-five. She remains proud of her Ipswich roots and her Indigenous heritage.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today