Barty’s embrace

Yes, giving up is no longer an option for Barty.

Having rolled over brilliant Kerber in the semi-final, she was not going to be a wilting flower, faced with her last hurdle in the final to the Wimbledon crown.

She knew she had to come out against Pliskova's blow-away serving game with all guns blazing, from the beginning to a dreamt-for-end.

It was indeed a perfect first game.

For a start, she could serve first, which gave her the opportunity, should her first serves win her the first game, to make her opponent try to catch up with her, when Pliskova's service game followed.

But Barty's first love-game was so one sidedly brilliant, that her opponent was a nervous wreck in trying to find in vain, her feared first serve.

So Barty raced away to an unbeatable lead and won the first set comfortably.

Then came the second set where Barty was having her championship point, but she could not convert and she eventually lost in a tiebreak.

The gods weren't smiling on her then: not one, but two net balls from Pliskova ended up on Barty's side to ensure a lucky victory for Pliskova.

But Barty was not to allow the game to be dictated by luck.

She put the loss behind her, reset, and defeated Pliskova convincingly in the third set, after she broke her in the second game and this time she never let her break back again.

When Barty fulfilled her childhood dream and won the Wimbledon crown, her reaction to victory told legends about her character.

She did not pump the air with aggression, or even jump up and down; rather she crouched down in relieved and grateful humility. Then she gave her opponent a warm and sympathetic hug over the net.

But the most revealing moment about Barty's character and inner struggle came in a moment, we the curious public, were not supposed to see.

It was after she was paraded through every nook and cranny of Wimbledon, from all the official presentations, running around the court and climbing into the area of her team and hugging them each individually, to chats with royalty and other dignitaries, and holding up her trophy to the outside crowd too from the balcony of the first floor of the Wimbledon club.

The camera kept following her further, to somewhere which should have stayed her private space. Where at last, after all the public displays of celebration paused, she was back in the corridor with her waiting team once again.

And there Barty could finally let go: there was a respectful silence amongst her whole team and at last Barty could cry: let the Atlas roll off her shoulder. That was the extraordinary burden of inner and outer expectation on her to fulfil her childhood dream and to match Yvonne Gooloogong Cawley's precedence 50 years earlier and claim the English crown once again by an Australian Aborigine.

Those were tears of unbelievable relief, triumph and joy over this extraordinary achievement.

What followed was equally precious and moving: she sank into the caring embrace of her partner Garry Kissick, who was there totally for her, holding her ever so gently to his heart. And his beloved and ever loyal coach, Craig Tyzzer, stood by her through all this with an eventually fatherly squeeze on her shoulder, reassuring her without words: 'Yes Ashley, this is real!'

I doubt, there was a dry eye amongst Ashley's team or many in the TV viewing audience around the world.

In that moment, it was not only Barty's dream that was fulfilled:

It was also a glimpse of the fulfilment of what Stan Grant referred to in his brilliant book and documentary about the Australian Dream.

Yes, this gave a taste of what it takes to fulfil the Australian dream: to recognise and embrace the people of Australia's first nation truly as our equal brothers and sisters.

For this to begin to happen, the Aborigines, the Yvonne Gooloogongs, the Cathy Freemans, the Adam Goodes and the Ashley Bartys, had to become world famous stars.

But they did it for all of us to see, if we have eyes and hearts, how proud they can make us feel that they, the first nation's people are so quintessentially and preciously foundational to the Australian identity and dream.