Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin / Photo credit: Victor Joly / DPPI via AFP
Like it was yesterday. Ten years ago to the day, former French tennis player Marion Bartoli won her only Grand Slam at Wimbledon. Even today, the ex-world number 7 remembers this moment in detail. She confided in the program “Europe 1 Sport”.
“I feel like it was yesterday.” From her Grand Slam won at Wimbledon in 2013, Marion Bartoli has forgotten nothing. On Saturday July 6, 2013, the former tennis player wrote a line from French sport by beating Germany’s Sabine Lisicki in the final. “I remember every detail of every moment, from the preparation in the locker room, the warm-up in the morning, from the tension that rises, from the moment when I take my bag and I walk in front first to go to the central”, remembered in Europe 1 Sports the former world number 7.
“My life has changed”
For Marion Bartoli, this first Grand Slam title is the culmination of several years of hard work. Already in 2007, six years before her coronation, the Frenchwoman had achieved the feat of reaching the final of this same tournament. Unfortunately, his opponent of the day, Venus Williams, had prevented Marion Bartoli from achieving the feat. “She played too well for me that day,” admitted the former tennis player in Europe 1 Sports. Then aged 22, the latter had been “taken by the challenge”.
But the player’s strength of character allowed her to come back stronger a few years later. Marion Bartoli assures her, after her victory on the London lawn, her “life has completely changed”. A rare player to play both forehands and backhands with both hands, the ex-player received many congratulatory messages, including that of Monica Seles, her idol: “Thanks to you, we completed the Grand Slam in the two of us, two-handed players”, wrote the former world number 1 to him. The latter had won the other three Grand Slams. Only Wimbledon was missing from his list.