"Tennis does not define me" - Explaining success and should that be judged on a number?

The path to success as a sportsperson comes in many different forms.

The definition of success for an athlete is subjective.  

It is a chapter of your working life, but a long way from identifying you the person over a lifetime.

Ash Barty’s philosophy that “tennis does not define me” is a core pillar of her legacy.

She consistently separated her athletic achievements from her personal worth, famously stating after tough losses that the “sun’s still going to come up tomorrow” and that a single match won’t dictate who she is.

Ash was good enough to reach the pinnacle of the sport, so there was a great deal of inner satisfaction that she had made it and more, but regardless of her success, she would have always stood true to that saying itself.

For the vast majority, that is unattainable, so how they assess their professional career is a personal matter for the player, with plenty sitting in judgment from the outside.

Some will feel contentment that they gave everything of themselves, and the end result is what it is.

For others, they will wrestle with feeling like they failed, because they didn’t reach the level considered ‘successful in tennis’

What is that level considered as successful, you might ask?

Often, a young tennis player, when asked about his future ambitions, will state the line ‘make the top 100’ because, in tennis terms, that has always been considered ‘making it’, a double-figure ranking, giving you direct entry to the four biggest and most prestigious tournaments tennis has to offer.

You have made it to the big time, playing on the biggest stages year in year out.

I have often said without any shame that we, of course, want our Aussie players to be ambitious and raise the bar, so that we have a healthy contingent of players in the top echelon of the sport (being in the top 100, but pushing for more players inside the top 50).

Listen to The First Serve Live every Monday at 8pm AEST in its 18th year on the SEN Network/App, Australia's only dedicated weekly tennis program on commercial radio running through till the end of November.

You start your career with no ranking, looking at a rankings graph of so many players in front of you (around 2000 names), and you take on the challenge of rising as high up the ranks as possible.

It is certainly not an easy path, arguably the toughest sport in the world to ‘make it’, also because of the individual nature of it.

In a team sport like AFL, it is considered a failure not to make the top eight out of 18 teams each year.

Compare that to an individual sport like tennis, which is a different beast in how the sport is structured (made up of independent contractors). Is the word failure too strong a word to use if you don’t ever reach the top 100 of the sport? I would say absolutely yes.

Take 33-year-old Aussie Alex Bolt as an example. His career high ranking is 125, he has a win-loss record as a pro of 513/362 (across the three tiers ITF/Challengers/ATP Tour.

When you have got to 125 in the rankings out of 2000 players ranked, and you have won more matches than you have lost, that is not failure, but in the category of yet being good enough to reach the top 100 class (18-34 at tour level and 165-141 at ATP Challenger level with a 4-11 record in Challenger finals) hasn’t elevated him to where he would love to be.

As an active player still (152 Live), he may still reach the top 100. Back in April, 36-year-old Argentine Marco Trungelliti created history by becoming the oldest man in the open era to break into the top 100.

Of our current eleven active men inside 200, the other player yet to get his ranking into double figures is 25-year-old Dane Sweeny (126 Live), but he clearly has more time on his side to achieve that goal.

One year older than Sweeny is Matthew Dellavedova. The 26-year-old is at 339 in the world on a hot streak (21 straight wins as I write) that has seen him win four consecutive tournaments. He is back around his career high of 334, with the question to be answered is the best still to come?

If you count every tennis match Matt has played as a pro since 2015, he is 393-298 win loss. Not a failure because he has won more matches than he has lost, but in the not good enough category presently in measuring him against the benchmark of the sport, but with time to elevate.

He is 3-24 at Challenger level and has never played a match at tour level.

His brother Andy, Director of the Dellavedova tennis academy in Melbourne, was on The First Serve Live on SEN recently.

“Matt is definitely the most disciplined, single-minded, and hardest-working person that I have ever known. Everyone respects him because of how hard he works” Dellavedova said.

“He was a bit of a freak as a junior. He was just the best that Australia had all the way up till he was 17-18 when he made the pretty radical decision to change from a one-handed backhand to a two, which is incredibly rare”

At Australian Open qualifying in 2025, his first taste of the big time, to be within three wins of a grand slam main draw, courtesy of getting a wildcard, and he was a set and a break up against Frenchman Terence Atmane in the first round before losing in three sets.

The Frenchman would go on to defeat Taylor Fritz in the same year and take a set off Jannik Sinner, making a Masters 1000 semi-final in Cincinnati, elevating to the world’s top 50. The gap is not that large if you can seize the moment/s

Back to what is the definition of success?

Andy Dellavedova further told The First Serve.

“A lot of people would say that in a sport played by more than a billion people, that is pretty successful (where Matt is currently ranked), but I don’t think Matt would accept that”

“If he had raw speed on his serve, that could take him to the next level”.

The tour is made up of many players in the top 1000 right now, yet to crack the top 100 and in a lot of cases, unlikely to. Of the ‘older’ Aussie contingent who have been around for a while, it would be fascinating to hear their own individual take on how they would assess their careers.

On the men’s side, Marc Polmans at 29 was close (116), currently 344, 30-year-old Li Tu got to (160), currently 421, Omar Jasika at 29 (177 CH), currently 531

Jake Delaney at 29 (CH 381), Moerani Bouzige at 26 (CH 314), and Blake Elliis at 27 (CH 271) have been grinding for a long time, playing the sport they love, getting to see some of the world, but it comes at a cost that is not always easy to sustain from Australia.

On the women’s side, Maddison Inglis at 28 has been close (112), currently 149, 31-year-old Storm Hunter reached (114), currently 186 and 28-year-old Lizette Cabrera (119), currently 298.

All are still daring to dream of a double-figure ranking, but haven’t been good enough yet to get to that next level.

All the players mentioned will have a lot of living to do after their tennis career, whether they stay in the sport in administration, coaching, or media, for example or take on a totally new vocation.

Using Ash Barty’s philosophy, “tennis does not define me”, each of the above, regardless of what we say in the media, will assess their own careers if they don’t reach the top 100 of the sport and determine in their own mind if they have been successful or not.

It is, after all, a chapter of their lives, as a sporting career has a narrow window.

In saying that, Tennis Australia’s stated objective is to produce top 100 players on the world stage.

As a tennis media outlet, I think it is more than ok to want to have our Aussies alongside the best in the world and raise the bar of expectation.

We acknowledge that each individual case is different in how you mark the meaning of success, as it is so tough out on tour in a bigger tennis world than the halcyon days of Australian tennis.

There is certainly an expectation, as a grand slam tennis nation with a rich tennis history, that we uphold that in the hope that we can produce top-end talent going forward, so we will see who steps forward and raises the bar.

When it is all said and done, each player will drift into the sunset, many with their best legacy still to come.

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