For the 2007 Wimbledon finalist, whose 47-slam wait for her maiden crown broke the mark set by Jana Novotna at SW19 in 1998, her Ladies title run was the final result (nearly literally, as she played just three more matches before retiring following a loss to Simona Halep in Cincinnati 40 days after winning Wimbledon, citing "pain everywhere" after less than an hour of play due to the physical wear and tear of her career) of a familial sports experiment dreamed up by her father Walter, a doctor who sought to create a tennis champion through a series of unconventional training techniques that brought condemnation and mockery, but also a fitful turn with the Venus Rosewater Dish.
Through it all, Bartoli embraced the eccentricities that made her stand out, and often led to her being the object of derogatory comments. In the end, she stood tall and got the last laugh.
It was a long, slow climb, filled with raised eyebrows and skeptical asides. But rising above it all -- including coaching changes, barely-mediocre results and a wave of upsets that decimated the Wimbledon draw -- Bartoli found the opportunity for her moment in the spotlight and, quite simply, strangled the life out of it by putting together just the tenth women's run at SW19 pulled off without dropping a single set. Afterward, she was the epitome of class, poise and comfort in her own skin, letting cutting, often misogynistic and/or uncouth comments about her appearance slide off her back with nary a worry to be seen, and proving to be the most adult presence in a sea of immaturity (and worse). In a final bit of irony, Bartoli's slam title came at the one major that the player -- Monica Seles -- whose game hers was most patterned on was never able to win, as she defeated a German (Sabine Lisicki) in the final, something Seles was unable to do (losing to Germany's Steffi Graf) in her single Wimbledon final in 1992.
Since retirement, Bartoli has continued to be a magnet for rumors and headlines. Mysterious health issues, large weight losses and gains, and multiple whispers about and at least one serious attempt at a comeback (aborted because of injury issues) to professional tennis never resulted in her return. She's been most visible in recent years conducting on-court interviews for French television during Roland Garros.
===============================================
Bartoli's opponent in the final, Sabine Lisicki, was no stranger to success at SW19.
Her blend of power serving and big forehands was the sort of game perfectly suited to the lawns of Wimbledon. Unsurprisingly, her best slam results traditionally came at the All-England Club, previously topped off before this slam by a semifinal run two years earlier after being granted a wild card (she wrote a personal letter talking about her affection for the tournament as a way of asking for the spot in the draw) after having battled back from a 2009 ankle injury that left her on crutches for six weeks, off tour for five months and virtually having to learn to walk again. It was an emotional connection that Lisicki, the first German slam finalist in fourteen years (Steffi Graf - '99 Wimbledon), had (and still has) with the tournament. By 2013, she'd become a favo(u)rite of the Brits, as well, due to her bubbly air, easy smile and avowed love affair with England and Wimbledon itself (wearing a glittery Union Jack t-shirt to press conferences to wear her emotions on her proverbial sleeve, and saying things like, "There is no better feeling in the world than to have so much support on that beautiful Centre Court").
Almost everything about Lisicki's tennis in these years was emotional. She cried when she lost, and couldn't stop grinning (or crying happy tears) when she won. She'd left slams on a stretcher, and come charging back to erase a deficit and collapsed in a heap after losing a big lead. At least once, more than one of those had even occurred in a single match.
Showing an ability to defeat virtually any foe on the grass of the All-England Club, Lisicki defeated six Top 50 players en route to the final, including a fourth straight reigning Roland Garros champion (Serena Williams, ending her career-best 34-match winning streak while overcoming a 3-0 3rd set defict) in her last four appearances in London, and then brought the usually stoic Aga Radwanska to (likely) unseen (lockerroom) tears after a 9-7 3rd set win in the semifinals.
It was in that moment of defeat in the semifinals, that the curtain was pulled back on Radwanska's psyche. As a former girls champ at the event, it was no secret that her connection to Wimbledon was far different than that at any other slam. A year after having reached the final, and come within a set of defeating Serena to become the first Polish slam champ and new #1 player in the world, it seemed as if 2013 was "her time." With all the upsets in the women's draw, the #4-seeded Radwanska was suddenly the "favorite" in a semifinal field that included the #15, #20 and #23 seeds.
She'd defeated the other highest ranked player (#6 Li Na) in the quarterfinals (on MP #8), her third straight three-set win (3rd-M.Keys/4th Rd.-Pironkova). In the semifinal vs. Lisicki, Radwanska led 3-0 in the 3rd, but saw Lisicki ramp up her serve and come roaring back. She served for the final at 5-4, only to see Radwanska break on her third BP. Radwanska got within two points of the win at 6-5, but Lisicki held. After the German took a break lead at 8-7, she served for the final and immediately led 40/love.
After winning 6-4/2-6/9-7, Lisicki was predictably overwhelmed with emotion. Radwanska was, as well. Only hers was negative, and she did all that she could to keep it under wraps until she was able to reach the cover of the lockerroom. It resulted in a quick, no-look post-match handshake at the net that didn't come off quite as badly in real time as it did in photo captures, but it is what it is. The image is still used today as a perfect display of what has been determined to be "being a poor sport" in the aftermath of defeat.
In reality, Radwanska was breaking inside. After having battled through some big-hitting opponents and weary (and wrapped) legs to get back to the semis, coming up just a bit short of getting the chance to improve upon her appearance in the 2012 final that she'd called the best moment of her career and life, it was likely as clear to her as it was believed by many that the '13 Wimbledon *was* her best shot at ever breaking through to win a major title. The landscape and circumstances could never be as perfectly constructed for her to win a slam as they were that fortnight.
Yet, still, it didn't happen.
The "non-handshake" wasn't an immature reaction to disappointment, it was an attempt to maintain the appearance of strength in the face of the most crushing moment of her tennis career. Radwanska reached three more major semifinals before retiring in 2018, including another at SW19 (2015), but no opportunity was as brilliant as the one she was unable to capitalize on in London in 2013.
===============================================
A season after her career was teetering on the edge of oblivion due to four life-threatening blood clots in her calf, having slipped outside the Top 250, lost the support of the Flemish Tennis Federation, and couldn't even get an invite into Wimbledon qualifying (despite being a former Girls champ at SW19), Kirsten Flipkens -- pulling energy from the support of friend Kim Clijsters (who served as her part-time coach) and a group of "believers" so small she could count them on one hand -- had her career's greatest singles run beginning in late 2012 and carrying over into the summer of 2013. The Belgian qualified for the U.S. Open, won her first singles title, reached the AO Round of 16, rose into the Top 20 and defeated 2011 Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova (who was ill and needed in-match treatment) to reach the Wimbledon semifinals.
Flipkens injured her knee in her SF loss to Bartoli, but rose to a career high #13 in August. She hasn't reached the second week of a major since, but has become a successful doubles competitor and (occasional) singles achiever, especially during the grass court season.
===============================================
June 26, 2013 was quite possibly the wildest day in the 127-year history of Wimbledon. On Day 3 -- aka "Black Wednesday," aka "The Radwanskian Massacre" in the language of Backspin -- seven former women's and men's #1's exited the tournament, four matches were walkovers, and three singles contests ended in retirement (+ another in doubles) as shocking results multiplied and slick courts led to a series of falls, slips and stumbles all over the AELTC grounds. Six Top 10 seeds saw their Wimbledons unceremoniously come to a close on the day, as did one unbelievable record by possibly the greatest player to ever play the game.
Former #1 Victoria Azarenka pulled out after having been injured in her 1st Round match, while fellow past #1's Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Jelena Jankovic, Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer (ending his record streak of thirty-six straight grand slam quarterfinals) all lost.
Draw notes:
* - the "highlight" of the June 26 carnage was the match that featured '04 champ Maria Sharapova and 20-year old Portuguese qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito.
Earlier in the day, Sharapova had slipped and fallen on the grass during a practice session, eerily foreshadowing her later experiences. During the Russian's 2nd Round match with Larcher de Brito, Sharapova fell multiple times, injuring her hips and legs, and once doing a split on the baseline very similar to the one that had injured Azarenka two days earlier. Sharapova, as many players did that day, complained to the chair umpire about the surface being "dangerous," and left the court for medical treatment.
But Sharapova's biggest foe on the day wasn't the court, it her firebrand opponent, who'd finally pull off the "big league" victory on a major stage that her precocious talent had long seemed to insist could be possible a few years earlier, well before she'd even celebrated her sweet sixteenth birthday. A one-time child phenom, Larcher de Brito (a Nick Bollettieri pupil) was once renowned for her on-court decibel level. While Sharapova's falls planted seeds of doubt in her head that manifested themselves with every step she took, noticeably making her tentative in her footwork and shots, and sapping most of the ever-present confidence that had always made no lead safe for an opponent over the years, the hard-driving, fist-pumping Larcher de Brito (ranked #131) looked like a star dying for an opportunity to shine.
Showing a seeming immunity to the pressure of the situation her hard shots and aggression had suddenly put her in against one of the best players in the game, the youngster brought a rare vision of frustration to the Russian's face as her errors piled up and her opponent refused to bend. Larcher de Brito often jumped on Sharapova's first and second serves, then didn't blink when she had every opportunity to do so late in the 2nd set when the Russian carved out several break point chances that could have led to a 3rd set showdown. Larcher de Brito won 6-3/6-4, but then lost a round later to Karin Knapp.
Larcher de Brito's once promising career never really panned out, though. Her 3rd Round result equaled her best slam result at RG four years earlier, and which she matched in '14 at SW19. Her '14 Wimbledon run was her last appearance in a slam MD, as she lost in qualifying six times in the years that followed. She often played in relative obscurity on the challenger circuit late in the decade and had what amounts to a "remember her?" sort of existence in the sport. She never improved upon the ranking high (#76) she set at age 16, and never finished a season in the Top 100. Now 26, she hasn't played a pro match since March 2018. She's never officially retired, but was last known to be coaching at a club in Florida in late '18.
* - a year after losing in the 1st Round, Venus Williams missed Wimbledon due to a back injury. Today, 2013 stands as the only year since her 1997 debut that Williams has not appeared in the SW19 MD. Svetlana Kuznetsova's absence was the only time she's not competed since her debut in 2003.
* - en route to her (so far) only QF result at Wimbledon (the only slam she's played every year since 2012), Sloane Stephens flashed both the "Future" (super & focused) and "Current" (sometimes-wayward, often questionable) versions of her self.
In the 3rd Round against Petra Cetkovska, Stephens rallied from 2-0 down in the 3rd set to win six of the final eight games; then against Monica Puig in the Round of 16 she countered the Puerto Rican's game #1 break in the 3rd by winning six games in a row to close out the victory. In the QF, though, Stephens (down 4-5, 40/40 in the 1st) emerged from a 2 1/2-hour rain delay (which had been pushed for by Bartoli, drawing the ire of the the crowd) flat, dropping the set and going on to lose 6-4/7-5..
* - making their Wimbledon debuts in 2013 were '12 girls champ Genie Bouchard (def. #12 Ana Ivanovic and reached the 3rd Rd.), '12 girls finalist Elina Svitolina (lost 1st Rd. to Bartoli), future Ladies champ Garbine Muguruza (2nd Rd.), Madison Keys (3rd Rd.), and future Olympic Gold medalist Monica Puig (4th Rd.).
Karolina Pliskova recorded her maiden slam win, defeating #13-seeded Nadia Petrova before falling to Petra Martic a round later.
Kaia Kanepi reached her second SW19 quarterfinal, a run highlighted by a 2nd Round win over #7 Angelique Kerber in which the Estonian recovered from a set and 5-1 TB deficit to win in three.
Meanwhile, after back-to-back QF results, Tamira Paszek was upset in the 1st Round by Alexandra Cadantu. The Austrian has never advanced beyond the 2nd Round of a major since, and hasn't appeared in a slam MD since 2016. She recently played in a pair of '19 challenger events, her first pro tournaments in nearly a year.
* - Arantxa Rus lost in the 1st Round to Olga Puchkova, giving her seventeen consecutive losses to tie the tour record set by Sandy Collins from 1984-87.
* - The 51-slam streak that had seen at least one Russian reach the Round of 16 came to an end
* - Kimiko Date-Krumm, 42, recorded her final slam MD victories, defeating Carina Witthoeft and Alexandra Cadantu before losing to Serena Williams in the 3rd Round. She was the second oldest woman to win a MD match at Wimbledon, behind 47-year old Martina Navratilova in 2004, and the oldest to reach the 3rd Round in the Open era. The Japanese vet, who reached AO, RG and WI semifinals between 1994-96 before retiring and then returning in 2008 after a nearly 12-year absence, went 0-6 in her remaining slam MD matches. She then lost four times in the opening round of slam qualifying before retiring for the last time in 2017.
===============================================
The British women were just 1-6 in the opening round, but the "1" was Laura Robson. The 19-year old, finally in the MD on merit and not needing a WC, opened with a 1st Round upset of #10 Maria Kirilenko, the first Top 10 win by a British woman at Wimbledon in fifteen years. After a three-set win over Marina Erakovic (who served at 6-1/5-4) in the 3rd Round, Robson lost a close 7-6/7-5 4th Round match to previous SW19 quarterfinalist Kaia Kanepi. It was Robson's second slam Round of 16 in a year, having also reached the U.S. Open 4th Round in '12 (and 3rd Round at the AO, a career best at the slam).
The win over Kirilenko was Robson's fourth Top 10 win in ten months, with three coming in slam play. To date, she's not recorded another. She's not recorded a slam MD win since the '13 U.S. Open, either, after suffering a wrist injury at the '14 Australian Open. She missed the next five slams, and has never regained her past form, winning two challenger titles in 2016-17 but notching just one tour-level MD victory since 2013: a win over lightly regarded Ghita Benhadi in Rabat in 2016 in the Moroccan's only career WTA MD appearance. In 2018, Robson underwent hip surgery. Since her #46 finish in '13, these are Robson's season-ending rankings: 951-558-220-251-435.
The 2013 Wimbledon was also the final appearance at SW19 by Elena Baltacha. The 30-year old lost in the 1st Round to Flavia Pennetta in her twelfth MD appearance at the All-England Club. She lost in U.S. Open qualifying later that summer, and retired from tennis in November. She married coach Nino Severino a month later. Baltacha, who'd been diagnosed eleven years years earlier with the liver condition condition primary sclerosing cholangitis, was diagnosed with liver cancer in January '14, six weeks after she and Severino were married. She died on May 4th of that year.
The charity Rally for Bally was founded in her honor, with proceeds split between the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, which she and Severino had founded in 2010 to help disadvantaged children play tennis. In 2015, the Aegon Open in Nottingham named its championship trophy after her, and the Elena Baltacha Foundation continues to do a remarkable job of keeping Baltacha's image and memory alive in England as well as on worldwide social media.
Five years after her death, Elena Baltacha is inspiring a new generation to play tennis https://t.co/HLpD4BcyOu
— judy murray (@JudyMurray) April 20, 2019
Remembering the wonderful Elena Baltacha today. 5 years. pic.twitter.com/BKDrn0E5mP
— She Rallies (@SheRallies) May 4, 2019
===============================================
Longtime friends Hsieh Su-wei & Peng Shuai took the Ladies doubles title, the maiden slam crown for both. Hsieh was the first player from Taiwan to win a major title, while Peng was the fifth from China. Born four days apart and friends since they were thirteen, Hsieh & Peng had won WTA titles together as far back in 2008. But in 2013-14 their reach was greater. Before winning at SW19 on grass, they won in Rome by ending top-ranked Errani/Vinci's 31-match clay winning streak. They'd go on to win a second slam in Paris in '14, and reach the season-ending tour championships final in 2013-14, going 1-1. They would be off-and-on partners, breaking up but finding their way back together, until 2018, finally reaching a point where they could no longer tolerate playing with one another after getting into a disagreement about the services of a shared athletic trainer.
Their opponents in the final were 17-year old Ash Barty, the '11 Wimbledon girls champ, and Casey Dellacqua, who were playing in their second of three '13 slam finals. The Aussies went 0-3.
20-year old Kristina Mladenovic picked up her first slam crown, winning the MX with Canadian vet Daniel Nestor. The duo had been finalists at Roland Garros, and Nestor, 39, noted that he'd wanted to play with Mladenovic, a former junior #1 who'd reached seven WD finals with seven different partners over the previous year (winning 5), because he felt that she would be a top singles player one day and that he caught her "at the right time," before she'd start winning four and five singles matches at slams rather than the one or two she was then, and no longer had time for mixed doubles.
Mladenovic/Nestor defeated #2 seeds Mirza/Tecau in the QF, then #1-seeded defending champs Raymond/Soares to claim the title, saving two MP in the latter match-up in the final.
In the first Wimbledon wheelchair competition without Esther Vergeer, Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot successfully defended their doubles title, defeating Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley in the final to claim their fourth consecutive slam title. They'd go on to win the U.S. Open to achieve a Grand Slam that season. In the 2014, Kamiji & Whiley would also win all four majors, ultimately winning six of seven overall.
16-year old Swiss Belinda Bencic defeated Taylor Townsend in a three-set final to win the junior singles crown to become the first girl to put up back-to-back slam wins (w/ RG) since Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova won the 2006 U.S. Open and '07 AO. The last time the accomplishment was pulled off in a single season was 2003, when a young Kirsten Flipkens won Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior crowns. Bencic's run improved her junior mark on the season to 36-0.
Czechs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova defeated Anna Kalinskaya & Iryna Shymanovich to win the second of three consecutive slam titles in 2013 (Krejcikova also reached the AO final with a different partner). Five years later, the duo would complete the same Paris/London sweep by winning the women's doubles at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
Finally, after several seasons of speculation, Martina Hingis' ultimate comeback plans were revealed (as well as, more than likely, why she'd waited so long to make an official decision).
In March 2013, Hingis was announced as a member of the new class of Newport enshrinees into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, as the five year waiting period since her last pro match had finally made her eligible. With her earlier career's legacy rightly given its eternal place in tennis history -- an honor that would have been delayed by a pre-induction comeback -- it cleared the way for her long-awaited, and long rumored, return. That spring, Hingis undertook a brief stint as the coach of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, but a disagreement about tournament preparation led to the end of the relationship after just two months.
At Wimbledon, Hingis again took part in the Legends competition, winning it for the third straight year with Lindsay Davenport. They defeated Jana Novotna & Barbara Schett in the final. In July, Hingis was inducted into the Hall of Fame, then shortly afterward announced that she was coming out of retirement. Her partner would be Daniela Hantuchova during the summer North American hard court season, during which Hingis also played World Team Tennis, earning MVP honors and leading the Washington Kastles to the league title.
Hingis' sec-, err, third career would turn out to be HoF-worthy in its own right.
She added four WD slams to her career totals, as well as six in MX, completing a Career Mixed Slam with Leander Paes in 2015-16. She won her first Olympic medal, a WD Silver with Timea Bacsinszky in 2016, as well as the WTA Finals in '15 with Sania Mirza. For a short period of time, Hingis & Mirza formed a virtual doubles "dream team," winning seven titles, including three straight majors and the "Sunshine Double" (Indian Wells/Miami '15) as they rose to co-#1 in doubles for 31 weeks in 2016. Hingis returned for a brief solo stint in the top spot in late '17. In all, she won 27 doubles titles in her final comeback, wrapping up her career by winning nine with Latisha Chan during the 2017 season.
Hingis & Chan shared the #1 ranking for 24 additional weeks from late '17 until March '18, some five months *after* she'd already retired from the sport.
===============================================
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands wears Google Glass...
Anna Wintour...
Serena's pre-match sports jacket...
At a Wimbledon highlighted by dramatic upsets, including seven former men's and women's #1's exiting on "Black Wednesday" three days into the fortnight, many observers spent the past week bemoaning the lack of "big" stars in the tournament's latter stages. But that one of the two remaining women -- 28-year old Frenchwoman Bartoli or 23-year old German Sabine Lisicki -- would end this final Saturday having experienced a new career high, something that in no way seemed even a faint likelihood two weeks ago, actually made the Ladies' championship a rather intriguing affair for anyone who cared to actually pay attention. The last two women to defeat Serena Williams at SW19 (Bartoli in '11, and Lisicki this year), the finalists both entered the final seeking to further spread their wings.
While Bartoli, the '07 Wimbledon runner-up whose best has never been something to trifle with, has often been most known for her hitchy service motion, 175 I.Q., shadow swings and jumps in the backcourt between return points, a two-handed backhand-and-forehand game modeled on that of Monica Seles and an on-court glare that made no secret not only of her great will, but also her stubbornness. Quite often in the past, her ire has been directed at her falter Walter, who quit his medical practice to become his daughter's full-time coach, seeking to create a tennis champion via all sorts of odd training techniques -- such as running with tennis balls taped to her feet, amongst others, practice drills and "rewards" (such as giving a young Marion sweets for accurate shots, hence her longtime Backspin nickname, "La Trufflette"). In the process, while not molding a tennis champion from what would be the sport's most natural athlete, Dr. Bartoli did help give birth to one of the sport's great fighters.
After breaking off her oft-contentious coaching relationship with her dad (which included her ordering him to leave his seat in the stands during one of her matches at Wimbledon two years ago), Bartoli struggled to find a satisfactory replacement, going through several coaches (including former Wimbledon champ Jana Novotna) before finally utilizing the help of France's tennis federation, recently newly headed-up by another former SW19 winner, Amelie Mauresmo, who has both served as Bartoli's mentor and Fed Cup coach after brokering a deal that ended Marion's acrimonious nine-year estrangement from the nation's tennis organization. Previously having not reached a QF in '13 while also dealing with injury and illness, Bartoli, just a bit better at pretty much every aspect of her game than she was when she reached her first slam final, finally came into her own over the last two weeks, both on and off court.
The Pastry quickly held for 5-1, then held two match points at 15/40 on Lisicki's serve, and it looked as if things would be over in a flash.
But that hasn't been Lisicki's style at this Wimbledon, when she's corralled her sometimes-unruly power game in less pressure-packed moments and pulled miraculous victory from seemingly assured defeat. In matches against both last year's Wimbledon finalists in the past week, Serena (4th Rd.) and A-Rad (SF), Lisicki climbed back from 3-0 3rd set deficits to win over the world's #1 and #4-ranked players, respectively. And she began to play without the pressure of expectation here, as well. Big serves saved two match points, then she hit her fastest serves of the day after facing a third match point, saving it and going on to hold for 5-2. A break of Bartoli as she served for the title followed, as did another hold as Lisicki closed to 5-4, with her groundstrokes finally grooved as they were during her upset of Williams.
But Bartoli wasn't going to go down in history, as Novotna nearly was after her remarkable fumble against Graf in the '93 Ladies final (before finally winning her only slam five years later), as the player who lost a 6-1/5-1, 40/15 lead in the Wimbledon final. After winning a rally with one of her signature angled backhands in the first point, Bartoli took a 40/love lead. On her fourth match point, she fired an ace on the outside line of the service box, then quickly dropped her racket and sank to her knees in disbelief.
While Bartoli was often ignored over the course of the past fortnight, she didn't ignore anyone in what was rightly HER moment. She raced across the court to the Friends Box to congratulate her team, including mentor Mauresmo, friend Kristina Mladenovic (who Bartoli noted during her on-court interview was playing in tomorrow's Mixed Doubles final) and, of course, her still-close dad, without whose crazy dream of creating a champion she would likely have never experienced this moment in her life. As she and Lisicki, whose dream Bartoli had just (temporarily?) extinguished, she comfortingly grabbed hold of the woman who'd been her opponent only a few short moments before and walked arm-in-arm with her toward the fans seeking autographs on the side of the court. In that brief little moment, Bartoli's pleasant humanity shined as clearly and loudly as any of her eccentricities ever have.
As the new Wimbledon champion has learned since she last walked off Centre Court following a Ladies Championship, life need not be defined by a failure or inability to meet any particular desire. Life is life, and Lisicki, like Bartoli has discovered, will have more chances at happiness. She'll smile again. In fact, by the time Lisicki left the court, she already was.
Meanwhile, though she's a "veteran" by tennis standards, Bartoli is still just 28 in "real life" terms. As ESPN's Chris Evert said in the aftermath of the French woman's triumph, "it's never too late for a new beginning."
Amen. And allez, Marion.
* - "She's like a little artist out there. you can almost see her brain tick and how seldom she's at a loss for what she should do. (For) someone (who) has so many shots she seems to be very precise and clear." - Pam Shriver, on Aga Radwanska
* - "In tennis, anything can happen. I'm a perfect example of it." - Marion Bartoli
* - "Well, (spreads arms) that's me!" - Marion Bartoli, asked to explain her mediocre season *before* winning Wimbledon
* - "I'm not a mentor to that girl!" - Serena Williams, in a Rolling Stone interview, on Sloane Stephens, who'd talked about being close friends with Williams, who she said had essentially taken her under her wing
* - "It's never late for a new beginning." - Chris Evert, on Marion Bartoli
* - "For me, finishing with an ace to win Wimbledon, in my wildest dreams I couldn't believe that. Maybe a backhand winner, but just not an ace. I've been practicing my serve for so long, at least I saved it for the best moment." - Marion Bartoli
* - "It has always been a part of my personality to be different. I actually love that part of my game, you know: being able to have something different. At the end of the day, when the spectators were looking at ten matches, they will remember this girl that was doing something different." - Marion Bartoli
