World No.1 Ashleigh Barty announced her retirement on Wednesday, aged just 25, surprising the tennis world a few weeks after her triumph at the Australian Open.
She is not the first tennis star to bow out prematurely: Björn Borg, Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, Jennifer Capriati have thus hung up in full force of age. Common point between them, all returned with more or less happiness to the competition a few years later.
Bjorn Borg
The Swede dominated men’s tennis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, winning Roland-Garros six times and Wimbledon five times.
But “Ice” Borg abruptly announced his retirement in January 1983 at age 26, a decision generally attributed to mental exhaustion. A year and a half earlier, he had lost to his great rival John McEnroe in the final of the US Open, a major tournament he never managed to win. He made a brief comeback, with an old wooden racket, in 1991 but without a future.
Martina Hingis
The Swiss star was just 22 when she retired in February 2003, having won five Grand Slam singles titles and eight doubles between 1997 and 2000.
“I’ve been in this sport long enough to know what it takes to get to the top and I can’t do it anymore,” she said, citing ankle injuries.
“When you have been N.1 for four years, you cannot settle for less. And when you can’t compete with the best […] it is not possible to envisage a return”.
Hingis however returned to the courts for the first time in 2006 for two seasons, then in 2013 to shine this time in women’s doubles and mixed doubles, before her final retirement in 2017.
Justine Henin
Like Ashleigh Barty, Henin is 25 and tops the world rankings when she retires in 2008, with seven Grand Slam titles to her name.
“It’s the end of a great adventure, the end of something I dreamed of since the age of five,” she told reporters announcing her retirement.
During a brief return to the circuit, Henin reached the final of the Australian Open in 2010, losing to Serena Williams. She retired permanently in 2011.
Kim Clijsters
The Belgian left the courts aged 23 in May 2007, having won 34 WTA singles titles, including the US Open in 2005. Injuries and the constant struggle to stay at the top eventually got the better of her.
“It was more than wonderful,” she says. “But it’s time to hang up my racquet for good.”
She made a comeback between 2009 and 2011, during which she won two editions of the US Open and an Australian Open. In 2020, she returns to competition after seven years of absence and notably participates in the US Open, before hanging up (definitely?) last December.
Jennifer Capriati
The American won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 at the age of 16, but experienced poor performance in 1993 and decided to resume her studies at the age of 18. But she gets arrested for shoplifting and possession of marijuana. She returned to competition in 1996 and won the Australian Open and Roland-Garros in 2001, briefly occupying first place in the world. She finally hung up at the end of 2004.