Overview
"I'll be retiring from tennis. It's the first time I've actually said it out loud — yeah, it's hard to say, but I'm so happy and I'm so ready. And I just know at the moment in my heart, for me as a person, that this right."
With those words in a surprise Instagram post on Wednesday, March 23, Australian tennis champion Ash Barty advised that she's stepping away from the game. Her announcement came less than two months after she won the Australian Open, and less than a year after winning Wimbledon before that.
At the age of 25, Barty has already lived out her tennis dream — and, while fans will miss watching her on the court, she's clearly making the big move that's best for her. She'll always be a champ, of course, as well as one of Queensland's beloved sports heroes. And, well before her retirement revelation — an announcement no one could've seen coming — two Brisbane tennis spots had already painted celebratory murals that are well worth visiting right now.
Keen to pay respects to the tennis great, whether you're eager to have a hit as well or just scope out some eye-catching mural art? You have these locations to head to. Tennyson's Queensland Tennis Centre has a colourful number on display, while Ferny Grove's Pure Tennis Academy made over one of its sheds — complete with the colours of the Aboriginal flag as a background — at the beginning of the year.
At QTC, you can see the mural during the centre's opening hours — either just to look at or to use as a hitting wall. That means that you can drop by between 8am–10pm Monday–Friday and 7am–7pm Saturday–Sunday. And, you won't just be looking at one version of Barty, with three gracing the image.
Over at Pure Tennis Academy, the mural by James Smalls went up in January, and was actually finished before Barty's Australian Open win. It's now a permanent fixture, and you just swing by to check it out during opening hours — from 9am–5pm on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9am–5.30pm Tuesday–Wednesday and 8am–5pm on Saturdays. If you'd like to book a court while you're there, that's purely a bonus.
Find the Ash Barty murals at Queensland Tennis Centre, 190 King Arthur Terrace, Tennyson and Pure Tennis Academy, 144 Samford Road, Ferny Hills.