The tennis player who proudly claims her aboriginal heritage

BarcelonaAfter many years of searching, Australia has finally found a new source of inspiration on a tennis court. On the island where some of the most influential players in the sport have been born, such as Rod Laver, the new heroine is Ashleigh Barty, who has climbed to the world number 1 in the hope of being the woman who manages to impose its law with some frequency. After the reign of the Williams sisters, women’s tennis has entered an era without any dominators, with a lot of players rising and falling in the rankings.

With Naomi Osaka already eliminated, after a year in which she has decided to take things in stride, because she does not want to suffer from mental problems again in the form of too much pressure, and Garbiñe Muguruza back in Europe, Barty is the big favorite and wants win his third Grand Slam. And now, at home. So far, he has not conceded a set and has dominated the game without suffering much. Aggressive and solid, Barty has already hit the sky by winning at Roland Garros in 2019 and at Wimbledon in 2021. Now it’s his turn to rule the fast track. And she seems to be on the right track, ready to emulate the milestones of the great name of Australian women’s tennis, Evonne Goolagong Cawley. Both are the only Australians to have been number 1 in the world. And they both have one thing in common: Aboriginal blood. “Goolagong Cawley is a source of inspiration. He broke down barriers at a time when Aboriginal people were still mistreated,” said Barty, who is descended from the Ngaragu tribe by his paternal grandmother. Goolangong Cawley, on the other hand, was 100% Aboriginal, the daughter of a nomadic shepherd. A woman who managed to be the best player in the world at a time when almost no tennis club allowed people who were Aboriginal to enter.

“I am very proud to be Ngaragu, very proud to be an indigenous woman. I take it to heart,” said Barty, 25, who is part of an association that uses sport to empower Aboriginal and young women with little future. . For years, Australia has denied racism against Aboriginal people, who have been cornered for decades and have suffered systematic human rights violations: taking children from their parents, stealing land, raping women or killing community leaders. Only in recent decades has the government apologized, with some athletes, such as athlete Cathy Freeman, acting as the flag bearer of the Aboriginal cause. It was not until 2008 that the Australian government officially apologized, especially for the so-called “stolen generation”, when in the 1960s thousands of Aboriginal children were separated from their parents, officially to promote integration, and raised by white families. In many cases, these children were abused.

“Australia is reconciled with its past. Perhaps many people with Aboriginal blood used to hide from it, but I’m very proud of it. It’s an honor for me. It’s my way of being connected to the land, of giving back tribute to Australia’s first settlers, ”says Barty, who for many years saw how many media outlets systematically avoided talking about their Ngaragu heritage. His English Wikipedia page was edited to remove this part. In an interview, she was asked why she considered herself “indigenous” if she had a British daughter. “I’m a Ngaragu woman and I’m proud of that, I claim this culture,” said the 15-year-old, who won the Wimbledon junior tournament.

Following the path of Goolagong Cawley

When Barty reached the Wimbledon final in 2021, she did so in a dress that mimicked what Evonne Goolagong Cawley had worn when she won in London in 1971. Goolagong Cawley, in fact, became the first woman in 66 years to winning the same Grand Slam, Wimbledon, before and after being a mother in a time when players didn’t always find it easy to play. Born in 1951, the daughter of a traveling shepherd who almost never slept in the same place, she was able to play tennis in the small town of Barellan, New South Wales, when a schoolteacher, Bill Kurtzman, he saw her when she was still a girl watching a game from the other side of a club fence. Kurtzman invited her to play every day, until Vic Edwards, a Sydney coach, got the rumor of an Aboriginal girl playing like the angels. In 1965 he went to see her in action and took her to Sydney to train with him. Goolagong Cawley would win 7 Grand Slams, four times in Australia, and is still the 12th player with the most major titles in women’s professional tennis. He only resisted the US Open, where he lost four finals. Goolagong Cawley explained that when he was young, his mother used to tell him to “run out the back door” to hide every time a car appeared at the door, because “he was afraid she would be kidnapped. “. Of every 10 Aboriginal children in the 1960s, an average of two were abducted. Barty has campaigned alongside Goolagong Cawley to seek compensation for the victims of these abuses.

It is now Barty who excites the Australians, who have not seen one of his wins in Melbourne since 1978, when Chris O’Neil did just one year after Goolagong Cawley’s last victory in 1977. In the men’s category, the last Australian winner was Mark Edmondson, also in 1978. In fact, in the last 25 years only once has an Australian reached the final, Lleyton Hewitt in 2005. He lost. Barty wants to take Australian tennis off the desert.