PARIS - Ash Barty knew she needed a break from the WTA Tour, from the pressure and expectations, from the week-in, week-out grind. So she stepped away from the tennis court in 2014 and wound up trying her hand at cricket, joining a professional team at home in Australia.
After almost two years away, Barty was pulled back to the tour. Good choice. Now she's a Grand Slam champion.
Taking control right from the start of Saturday's French Open women's singles final and never really letting go, the eighth-seeded Barty capped a quick-as-can-be rise in her return to the sport by beating unseeded 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-3 for her first major championship.
"I never closed any doors, saying, 'I'm never playing tennis again.' For me, I needed time to step away, to live a normal life, because this tennis life certainly isn't normal. I think I needed time to grow as a person, to mature," said Barty, who turned 23 in April.
And as for why she came back three years ago?
"I missed the competition. I missed the one-on-one battle, the ebbs and the flows, the emotions you get from winning and losing matches," said Barty, who will jump to a career-best No. 2, behind only Naomi Osaka, when the new rankings are released Monday. "They are so unique, and you can only get them when you're playing and when you put yourself out on the line and when you become vulnerable and try and do things that no one thinks of."
That last part is an apt description of how she approaches each point, looking for just the right angle or speed, understanding where an opponent might be most vulnerable at any given moment. She used her slice backhand, topspin forehand and kick serve to do just that to Vondrousova.
"She's mixing things up. And she has a huge serve," Vondrousova said. "So it's all, like, very tough to play against."
Barty raced to a 4-0 lead in Saturday's first set and then held on, showing she learned her lesson after blowing a 5-0 edge in the opening set of her semifinal victory a day earlier against another unseeded teenager, 17-year-old American Amanda Anisimova.
"An absolute roller-coaster," Barty called that match.
Her coach, Craig Tyzzer, said the two of them huddled with Ben Crowe, who helps Barty with the mental side of tennis, and they had a "really good discussion about it" to make sure she'd avoid that sort of trouble in the final.
Neither Barty nor Vondrousova had been as far as a major semifinal before this past week, but with the title on the line, only Vondrousova seemed jittery at the outset as she played at Court Philippe Chatrier for the first time.
"She gave me a lesson today," said Vondrousova, who is ranked 38th. "I didn't really feel good today, because she didn't let me play my game."
Barty wound up with a 27-10 edge in winners to become the first Australian to win the trophy at Roland Garros since Margaret Court in 1973.
"I played the perfect match today," said Barty, who needed all of 70 minutes to wrap things up.
The women's final started about 1 1/2 hours later than scheduled because it followed the resumption of Dominic Thiem's 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 victory over top-ranked Novak Djokovic in a men's semifinal suspended Friday evening because of rain. The fourth-ranked Austrian, looking for his first major title, will face 11-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal on Sunday in a rematch of last year's final.
The 32-year-old Djokovic had won 26 straight Grand Slam matches and was on a quest for his fourth consecutive major title and 16th overall. The 25-year-old Thiem ended the run.
"I don't want to point out some reasons or find excuses for this loss," said Djokovic, who had won nine of his past 10 five-setters and was 29-9 overall in such matches. "I mean, he took it, he won it and well done to him."