Hi, this is Billie Jean King. This is Mary and Bartorri.

I'm Matt's Belander. This is Mary Carillo. This is Yannick Noah and you're listening to the tennis

podcast.

Well, we weren't intending to do tennis podcast today, but I woke this morning to a message from Catherine

saying, oh my god, Barty. I didn't know what that meant. So I went to that a very quick look and

it said that Ash Barty, age 25, Wimbledon, Australian Open, Champion and the Rainy World No. 1,

had retired and actually had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st and that this

was a joke. I genuinely did, but that's how surprised I was at this news. So we've hastily

convened, Catherine Whitaker, Matt Robertson, myself David Law and Billie Jean, who's back from her

her other home with Catherine's brother, Catherine back from Indian Wells and yeah, this wasn't

exactly the news you were expecting to be talking about literally about 12 hours after landing.

Catherine, I mean, it's shocking enough as it is. What's it like with eight hours of jet lag?

Yeah, I was hoping not to have to be lucid today.

This is a bit of a blow in many ways. So bear with me folks.

Yeah, it is a huge shock and yet at the same time, I don't want to be just too downhearted about it

because frankly, it's not about me. It's not about us. We're going to make it about us. I'm telling you.

But I mean, it's about ultimately Ash Barty, who released this news in an interview on her

Instagram page that she'd done with Casey Delacqua and you may remember Casey Delacqua,

her longtime doubles partner, a very close friend of hers, somebody who had actually helped her

return to the sport after the previous time that she had out of it when she was struggling and she

decided to move away from the sport some years ago and she had 18 months away and Casey Delacqua

eventually said to you know, come out and just have a hit with me and let's get out there and

...