Ashleigh Barty was born on 24 April 1996 in Ipswich, Queensland, to Josie and Robert Barty; her father is of Ngarigo Aboriginal descent. She began working at four with her long-time junior coach Jim Joyce at the West Brisbane Tennis Centre, and in 2011, at 15, she won the Wimbledon girls' title. She made her WTA main-draw debut as a wildcard in Hobart in 2012 and in 2013 reached three major doubles finals with Casey Dellacqua.
After the 2014 US Open she stepped away from tennis for 21 months. During that break she signed to play professional cricket for the Brisbane Heat in the new Women's Big Bash League, despite having no formal training in the sport. When she returned, she rose quickly, winning her first major title in doubles in 2018 and her first in singles at the 2019 French Open. That June she became world No. 1, the first Australian woman in 43 years to reach the top, and she won the season-ending WTA Finals.
Her game was complete and all-court, with a rare blend of power, spin and touch. She won Wimbledon in 2021, beating Karolína Plíšková in the final, the first Australian woman to take the title since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980, and she wore a dress in tribute to Goolagong. In January 2022 she won the Australian Open, the first home champion since Chris O'Neil in 1978. She finished 2019, 2020 and 2021 as year-end No. 1.
In March 2022, two months after her Australian Open title, she announced her immediate retirement, joining Justine Henin as the only women to retire while ranked No. 1. She had spent 121 weeks at the top, a total bettered by only seven women, and won three major singles titles and 12 WTA Tour singles titles (Britannica counts 15 singles titles in all).