She’s hardly a glam queen. Not that tall (think Sharapova). Not that lean (think Venus, Daniela). Not that style conscious (think Ana, Serena). Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli — she of two hands off both wings and the winner of the ’09 Bank of the West Classic — is a unique I’ll-do-it-my-way player whose greatest strength may just be her mental toughness.
The budding painter (Van Gogh is her favorite artist) has grown accustomed to confronting the doubters, starting with her DAD, who dismissed a then-five-year-old Marion when she said she would someday be the French prime minister; and who, before the Bank of the West final against Venus Williams, told her, “The only goal for you today is not to lose 6-0, 6-1 like Elena [Dementieva, who was drubbed by Venus in the semis].”
Or the FEDERATION FRANCAISE DE TENNIS, which relentlessly urged her to abandon her father/coach, Walter: “[They] used to tell me, ‘Okay, your dad is just so stupid, and so idiotic — there is no way you can be a tennis player with him on your side.’ I was looking at Serena when she was 14 or 15 and starting to play really well, and Venus was already at the top of the game, and Richard was making them No. 1. I was telling them, ‘You see, Venus came up to No. 1 with her dad on her side, and her dad was not a tennis player, so maybe if I keep doing the same with my dad it can work.’…[They said], ‘No. There is no way. You have to practice with us. You have, first of all, not to hit [with] two-hands on the forehand. There is no way you can be a good player.’ Monica Seles was doing the same. She was No. 1.”
Or the PRESS (after she reached the Wimbledon final in ’07, the British tabs said she had the body of “a shopping attendant”).
Or, worst of all, the very VILLAGE in which she was raised. The ambitious Bartoli said she developed much of her trademark inner strength from hard times in her former hometown. “I remember always telling myself, ‘I don’t want to stay in this village forever…I want to travel the world…I want to take my dad out of this village, rather than see him work 18 hours a day for people who don’t even respect him [he was a doctor]. I want to take him out of this as quick as possible.’ At that point, when I was practicing in the winter, we had to take the snow off the court because we didn’t have any indoor courts. So it was zero degrees, it was snowing outside. I think it makes you mentally tougher. Growing up in Paris, you have everything with the French federation, all the facilities you want, a nice heated court inside, everything. I didn’t grow up in that kind of situation, so it makes me stronger.” Added Marion, “I know how the people are in a small village. I remember when I left, I closed the house…I said, ‘Now it’s a new life. And I’m never, ever coming back to this village in my whole life. Never, ever.'”
And she hasn’t.
