Charlie Barry moved to Spain after sitting the Junior Cert in Ardscoil Ris to pursue his tennis dream. He spent four years studying and playing in the States, and for the last 12 months he has ploughed the lonely road of a pro around the world.
This weekend, Barry will wake up in his home town and make the short spin from the Castletroy Hotel to The University of Limerick for his Davis Cup debut as Ireland face Syria in A World Group 2 playoff and he can’t but love that.
“Easiest travel day of my life,” he laughs, “15 minutes across town.” The game face has been donned all week, as it has to be, but there was an undeniable buzz when Conor Niland’s five-man Ireland team was announced in mid-January and his name was there. Barry is no stranger to Davis Cup. It’s in his blood.
His brother Sam, 10 years older, has already shown the way. Charlie was barely in to double figures when big brother featured in home ties against Estonia and Egypt and in Hungary’s Szeged Varosi Sportcsarnok arena 14 years ago.
That away tie has particular pride of place in the memory banks as Sam Barry beat Marton Fucsovics 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in a singles tie as Ireland went down 3-2 overall. Fucsovics would reach an ATP ranking of 31 in the years to come.
Courtside that day was young Charlie.
“We had a team meeting Tuesday night and we had a nice little photo of me just on the sidelines. A big head of curls. It was really cool. And, yeah, I’ve come full circle now. My chance at home. So it’s really cool.”
Sam works in aircraft leasing in New York these days, and didn’t play a huge role during Charlie’s college days playing Division One tennis, but he is umbilically attached to his kid bro’s nascent pro career. The pair talk basically every day.
Another huge influence is David O’Hare, a former Irish Davis Cup man and a very decent doubles player in his day who has now moved on in the coaching world where he has guided Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram, one of the best doubles pairings in the world.
“I can’t even put it into words, to be honest, his knowledge of the game. So I’m more focused on doubles and he’s obviously played doubles to an extremely high level, but also in being the coach of the best in the world at doubles.
“I try to see him as much as I can throughout the year. He lives in London, but we are in communication pretty much daily. And then I did about eight or nine weeks over in London, training weeks with him last year. Brilliant.
“The more I see David the better I’ll be at tennis. I fully believe that.”
His education at the academy in Spain had brought with it better facilities and coaching and hitting partners than he could have hoped for back home – and the fluent Spanish he picked up in his years there is something he can appreciate more now in the wider world.
Three-and-a-half years at Tulane University in New Orleans was his grounding in the US. It offered him NCAA Division I exposure and the same sort of access to all the support networks and services and a team environment that suited him down to the ground.
Much as he loved life in the Big Easy, he eventually felt like a change was needed. Finishing his undergrad in marketing six months early left him with one more year of NCAA eligibility and he made use of it at the University of Memphis.
Conor Gannon, a teammate in Limerick this weekend, was already there. O’Hare had studied and played there. Barry left with an MBA, an improved game and a confidence that he had what it took to make a go of the pro doubles circuit.
“It was the best decision I ever made.” He’d known for a decade that doubles was more his thing. College erased any last doubts and his first 13 months on the Futures tour has already seen him claim five titles and catapult up the rankings from 1,458 at the end of 2024 to 318 in January.
None of which is to say that it’s been easy. Solo life on tour is a very different grind to the collegiate – in both senses of the word – circuit. Finding a doubles partner on a weekly basis and in disparate, far-flung destinations is no picnic.
“I’d say I sent over 150 Instagram messages last year just trying to find partners, half not even responding because there’s obviously not many Irish people as well. You just have to make your way up and build your reputation.” If that got easier as the wins stacked up then his elevation into the 300s on the rankings list actually undoes some of that as he progresses on to the higher Challenger Tour where he has to prove himself all over again and tournament invites are harder to come by.
“So it’s just about finding ideally, at some point, a set partner. Hasn’t happened yet, and that’s quite normal. Someone said it beautifully before: it’s like Love Island on steroids when it comes to the messaging and chat and stuff like that.”
Niland’s book about life on tour opened a fascinating window into the grind and what can be the soul-destroying nature of life for ambitious pros. There is none of that in Barry’s voice as he lays bare his self-confidence and his ambitions.
This is a guy who proclaims an absolute love for the game and whose goal is to make it to the top in doubles where the prize money isn’t quite that of the singles game but still add sup to a pretty penny for those contesting Grand Slams titles.
