ROLAND GARROS

June 3, 2021

Ashleigh Barty

Press Conference

M. LINETTE/A. Barty

6-1, 2-2 [Ret.]

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You must be devastated, given how long you have waited to come back here. How are you feeling right now?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Yeah, it is. It's heartbreaking. I mean, we have had such a brilliant clay court season, and to kind of get a little bit unlucky with timing more than anything to have something kind of acute happen over the weekend and just kind of run out of time against the clock is disappointing. It won't take away the brilliant three months that we have had, as much as it hurts right now.

Q. It's so tough to really say much, but when you walked off the court, what were those emotions like? I mean, are you able to just put those into words?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Not really, no. Yeah, it's a tough one. For something acute to happen over the weekend and then kind of feel like -- we did everything, absolutely everything we could to give myself a chance. And, you know, it was a small miracle that we were able to get on court for that first round. Again, today it was no better and getting worse again.

It's something, it's really disappointing. But like I said, we have had an exceptional last two, two-and-a-half, three months, a little bit of a setback, and what happened today and this week here in Paris won't take away from that. We have had a brilliant, brilliant time.

It's disappointing to end like this. We have had -- I mean, I've had my fair share of tears this week. It's all good. Everything happens for a reason. There will be a silver lining in this eventually. Once I find out what that is, it'll make me feel a little bit better, but it will be there, I'm sure.

Q. A lot of bad luck has befallen Grand Slam champions in the women's draw particularly so far. You've talked about an acute episode over the weekend. Assuming that was actually on the training court, was it? Can you tell us a bit more about how it happened?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Yeah, it was when we were training over the weekend. I'm not probably in the head space right now to go through it with you guys. I'm going to continue to work on it as best I can with my team. We've done absolutely everything we could to give myself the best chance. We just ran out of time, which sucks.

But we go back to the drawing board now and continue to do all the right things to heal and recover as quickly as possible.

Q. Watching you this morning during practice, you didn't seem to be hampered that much. But then again, it looked like it was also not an incredibly intense practice session. Would that be fair to say, that things like the serve was an issue because you couldn't get the powerful pushup from your legs or anything like that?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to it, to kind of how I'm feeling and the restrictions I had within my game. The serve was the biggest one. It was essentially I was trying to roll my arm over these last kind of four or five days and taking my legs out of it, which is a challenge in itself.

But, yeah, it's just a bridge too far this week, which is disappointing to know that we have done all the right things to get to this point. We had a fantastic lead-up. And for my body to let me down is really disheartening, but knowing that we also, we did nothing wrong. It's something that can't be explained at this time.

We'll try and figure it out as best we can, like we always do. But to this minute we are, yeah, still figuring out how to treat it as best that we can and knowing that we did absolutely nothing wrong in the lead-up. There were no red flags, there was nothing. It was just an acute kind of episode which is, yeah, tough.

Q. Did you contemplate pulling out today? Obviously you pulled out of the doubles yesterday. Did that ever go through your head since your first-round win?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: I mean, I just tried to give myself a chance, tried to give myself a chance and see how it felt. Obviously practicing we've had our restrictions and essentially tried to stay as fresh as possible and not aggravate it in any way, but in a match that's unavoidable at times.

Yeah, it got worse today and it was becoming at the stage where it was unsafe. As hard as it is, it was kind of, yeah, had to be done.

Q. Could you just run us through what happened at the end there? Because you had got back to 2-All, you looked like there was some sort of a revival at the start of the second set. But in the end it was almost a surprise to see you go to the net. What actually happened there?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: It was just becoming too much. I mean, I'd been right from the first game I was battling the pain, and it just became too severe, and like I said, was becoming unsafe.

It was a decision that, yeah, just a tough one, had to be done.

Q. What's the prognosis for the grass? Do you think it's realistic you could be fit in time for Wimbledon?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: Ah, I hope so. I really do. We do all the right things now, we continue to do the right things. Yeah, give ourselves the best chance.

Q. Is this something you have had happen before? You said it was a flare-up.

ASHLEIGH BARTY: No, completely new injury, and I think, yeah, something that I've never experienced before, even chatting with my physio, not something she has seen regularly either. So we've been consulting with people all over the world to try and give us some insight into what the best ways to manage it are, to handle it, and I'm confident we do have a plan. It's just that we ran out of time here.

It's disappointing but not panic stations in a way where we -- I mean, we know what's going on. We just need time to manage it to get back on the court as quickly as we can.

Q. As far as the issue itself is concerned, is it as if you're in constant pain, or is it the movement is hampered? Is it a combination of both? The second thing I wanted to ask you is you've played so much since leaving Australia, back to back to back. Could that have had some element or some factor in what's happened the last couple of tournaments?

ASHLEIGH BARTY: I mean, completely different scenarios the last two tournaments. I think obviously last week in Rome was a bit of an accumulation, yes.

Again, it was probably more to ensure that I could, I would know that I'd be 100% fit coming here. And, you know, my arm has been feeling great probably for the last seven or eight days, and that was probably our biggest concern and our biggest focus point was to make sure that we had done all the right things for my body.

But as for the hip, it was, yeah, had nothing to do with loads or anything like that. As far as we can tell, it was literally acute, landing on serve one day, and that's all she wrote. Yeah, it was brutal and tough to accept.