6 stats showing that Barty was a special world No 1
Tennis Majors, with our partner Opta, reveal 6 stats that show how Barty was dominant during her reign and how impossible it was for her to find a consistent rival during this period
Ashleigh Barty, Roland-Garros 2019 © Zuma / Panoramic
1. World No 1 for 121 weeks, 114 in a row
Ash Barty was the No1-ranked WTA player for 114 consecutive weeks before announcing her retirement from professional tennis. It’s the fourth-longest streak in the history of the WTA Tour. Only three players did beter :
• Steffi Graf and Serena Williams (186 weeks) ;
• Martina Navratilova (156)
Chris Evert (113) is close behind Barty.
In total, Ash Barty was the WTA-ranked No1 player for a total of 121 weeks, behind Graf (377), Navratilova (332), Serena (319), Chris Evert (260), Martina Hingis (209) and Monica Seles (178).
Barty was No 1 for the first time on June 24, 2019 and only lost her place for a few weeks in August 2019. Her ranking history is on the WTA website.
2. Barty won majors on three surfaces, only the greatest can do that
Ash Barty won Roland-Garros in 2019, Wimbledon in 2021 and the Australian Open in 2022. She is one of just nine women to win at least one Grand Slam singles title on every possible surface in the Open Era, alongside Margaret Court, Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong and Maria Sharapova.
But of course she is the one that won the fewest in all, while all 23 of Serena Williams’ slams came in the Open era. Hard courts made their appearance in Slam history in 1978 at the US Open and became mainstream in 1988 with the switch from grass to hard made by the Australian Open.
3. A total of 79 matches won as the world No 1
Since 2000, only Serena Williams (303), Martina Hingis (130) and Justine Henin (104) have won more matches than Ash Barty (79) as the WTA-ranked No. 1 player.
4. Barty will remain undefeated in 2022
Ash Barty has won her last 11 matches, all of them in 2022. That is her second-best career winning streak on the WTA Tour. Barty won 15 matches in a row between Roland Garros and Wimbledon 2019.
Her last opponents were Gauff, Kenin, Swiatek, Rybakina, Tsurenko, Bronzetti, Giorgi, Anisimova, Pegula, Keys and Collins. The last player who beat Barty was Shelby Rogers at the US Open. Rogers was then ranked 43th and prevailed in their third-round match.
5. Barty loved being the boss vs Top 10 players… except in majors (but it wasn’t her fault) !
In the last four seasons (since 2019), Barty has won 21 matches against top-10 players, more than any other woman on the WTA Tour. Maria Sakkari is second-best with18 wins.
Between the Shenzhen 2019 Finals and Stuttgart 2021, Barty had a 10-0 winning streak against top-10 players. The last top-10 player who beat Barty was Aryna Sabalenka in May 2022, in the Madrid final, on clay.
Nevertheless she had more difficulties with this kind of challenge during slams, where her record is 1-5. Her only victory was against Petra Kvitova, then world No 7 at the Australian Open in 2020 (quarter-final).
Otherwise she lost against Kvitova twice, Serena, Svitolina and Pliskova, all before January 2019, in other words before she was even a top-10 player herself. The highest-ranked player she met during her victorious slam runs were Keys (No14) in Roland-Garros, Pliskova (No13) in Wimbledon and Pegula (No21) at the Australian Open.
These numbers don’t say a lot on her lack of efficiency against top-10 players when she was the boss on the Tour – she won the only clash of this type in 2020 – but it highlights the incredible lack of consistency at the top of women’s tennis during the so-called Barty years, between 2019 and 2022.
6. The boss when it comes to finals
Ash Barty has won nine of her last 10 WTA Tour finals, winning at least one title in every surface in this run. She won every major final she played. Her last title on indoor hard courts was nothing less than the 2019 WTA Finals in Shenzhen.
