Ashlee Narker won't let profound hearing loss define her tennis success

With three older brothers, it was probably inevitable that Ashlee Narker would be drawn to sports. Growing up in a leafy suburb of Sydney’s North Shore, Narker played soccer, touch footy and field hockey.

And yet, it was the highly individual sport of tennis that really resonated.

“You have to rely on yourself and your ability to be able to beat your opponent,” Narker wrote recently in an email. “Because of this, the winning feeling is much more heightened than it would be in a team sport -- where you know that everything you have done to that point is what made you get over the line.”

Recently, Narker has been crossing that line a lot.

As a wild card in the ITF $15,000 in Caloundra, Australia, she reached the semifinals this summer. That success helped land a full scholarship to Iowa State that begins in January. Less than one month after her 18^th birthday, Narker is No.1,083 in the Hologic WTA Tour rankings.

This is all wonderful stuff, but Narker faces a silent challenge that accentuates those achievements. She was born with “severe to profound” hearing loss and, without the aid of a hearing aid, hears nothing. She is believed to be the highest-ranked player with this specific condition. Korea’s Lee Duck-hee is the only player born deaf to compete on the ATP Tour.

It’s instructive of her attitude that she rejects the idea deafness has been a challenge, for the secret to overcoming a handicap is not seeing it as a handicap at all. Initially, the biggest issue was a lack of confidence in knowing she was different from most people.

“But,” she insisted, “I am only just realizing now who cares about what other people think? Just go out there and do what you want to do. For me, sound is no barrier.”

In reality, of course, it is. Relying on vision alone is a distinct disadvantage. Hearing the ball come off the racquet enables faster reaction times, an advantage when receiving fast serves and groundstrokes. Each stroke makes a slightly different sound, depending on spin and speed.

“I can’t hear this sound,” Narker wrote, “so I have to focus on the opponent, how they are making contact and anticipate where they are going to hit it next based on its trajectory over the net.”

The biggest issue in her mind? Telling the chair umpire she needs hand signals to know the score.

Learning to belong

All four Narker children began playing at Kim Warwick Tennis Academy in Sydney. Warwick, a multiple Grand Slam doubles winner and a singles finalist at the 1980 Australian Open, helped coach Ashlee but his son, Aaron, was her main coach from the age of 5.

“I am practically married to tennis,” Narker wrote. “And like all marriages it has had its ups and downs. But nothing can come close to that winning feeling and the bigger the tournament, the better the feeling.

“I think it is safe to say that I smash all my brothers, they don’t have a chance!”

She is, by all accounts, an otherwise normal teenager. “The Maze Runner” is her favorite movie, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan top the list of recording artists, reading murder mystery novels is a favorite pastime. She is, naturally, on Instagram. Pets? Surrounded by the Aussie bushland, she lives in a “zoo” populated by the usual cats and dogs -- snakes, blue tongues, frogs, spiders, fish, scorpions and mice.

Narkin was 14 when she won the U14 title at the Rafael Nadal Tour Invitational and received an all-expenses-paid two-week stint at his academy in Mallorca, Spain. But COVID postponed that for two years. It was her first trip outside Australia and the coaches, Toni Nadal among them, were impressed with her level.

Training with some of the best juniors in the world, she first began to realize that she could play at an elite level. Was she good enough to play for a competitive Div. 1 college team?

At first, the answer seemed to be no. At the beginning of 2023, she sent a form letter to the Top 30 ranked teams in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Three months later, she hadn’t received any positive feedback, so she entered a number of local ITF tournaments, breaking through in that $15,000 event in Caloundra.

“I entered on a whim, hoping to win a round or two as I got a wild card into the main,” she wrote. “I ultimately surprised myself and made the semis. This meant that the schools I previously emailed were now getting in contact with me including SMU and Iowa State.

“I felt that the head coach [Jaron Maestas] was really genuine. He reassured me that being deaf would not be an issue and the team was very accepting. Thus, Iowa State was the best fit for me.”

Sharpened visual powers

Katrina Narker was born profoundly deaf and wears hearing aids. Technically, she has a genetic abnormality -- a reciprocal translocation between the 12^th and 14^th chromosome -- and passed this down to all four children.

According to her brother, Lachlan, Ashlee’s father, Greg, is the only family member whose hearing is intact -- but, he wryly observed, “the television volume in recent years suggests he might be heading that way as well.”

Off the court, Ashlee wears two behind-the-ear hearing aids, which bring her a roughly 50 percent hearing in conversational range. Still, high-pitched sounds elude her and she’s reliant on lip-reading. When she takes them off, she hears nothing. She had the option of having a cochlear implant, but the family is waiting for the technology to improve. Her meager hearing, like her mother’s, is likely to deteriorate as time goes on.

Tennis, with its violent stops and starts, isn’t conducive to wearing external hearing aids. Even the cochlear, with an external speech processor, would be problematic on the court for any number of reasons. With either method it’s probable she wouldn’t hear the ball coming off an opponent’s racquet.

Ashlee believes her lack of hearing has sharpened her visual powers.

“My game is based on my kinaesthetic sense and ability to feel the ball, as well as my increased visual acuity,” she wrote. “This has also improved my reaction and anticipation time.”

In January, she played her first tournament against international deaf Olympians at Melbourne Park. Narker, a wild card, defeated top-ranked Heike Albrecht-Schröder in the round-robin stage 6-2, 7-6 -- and then went on to win the AO DHOH singles title and, with Lin Chia-Wen, the doubles as well.

“It was amazing,” she wrote, “as I now know that I am the best deaf women’s player in the world.”

Ignore what they say

What is it in her character that allowed her, without much experience, to compete at that level?

“Honestly, I have to put it down to her stubbornness,” Lachlan wrote. “Her persistence in not taking no for an answer drives her strength and determination to succeed.”

Narker was selected to represent Australia at the World Deaf Championship in Crete, Greece this past October, but had to decline because she was completing her final year exams in Year 12.

She’s been training with her current coach, Adam Kennedy, for the past three years. He’s a former professional and has helped to take her game to the next level. In particular, Ashlee said, he’s given her confidence and instilled the work ethic necessary to reach the WTA Tour.

Narker will arrive in Ames, Iowa for the first time in January. In addition to competing for a Top 10 tennis program, she’ll be pursuing a degree in sports/exercise science. Her goals for the future are imbued with a lot of persistence and stubbornness.

“I have already achieved my goal of becoming the first deaf player to ever obtain a WTA ranking, which brings me to my next goal of winning a pro tournament and breaking into the Top 500,” Narker wrote. “When I graduate college, I would like to spend a year abroad in Europe and play as many pro tournaments as possible and crack the Top 100 -- and from there it only gets better.”

Her advice to young athletes with a disability?

“Why wouldn’t it be possible to succeed in sports despite having a disability or not?” she wrote. “However, success is not possible without hard work and the commitment you make to your sport like I did with tennis and the results will come.

“I would say to ignore what people say and their categorizations. Instead change their perception about what you can do in your chosen sport.”