Different strokes work for Bartoli

Bruce Emond ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Nusa Dua, Bali   |  Wed, 11/04/2009 1:31 PM  |  Headlines

A lot has changed for Marion Bartoli in the three years since she first visited Bali for the annual women's tennis tournament.

In 2006, the Frenchwoman, a former outstanding junior then ranked in the mid-20s, had yet to make her mark on the game.

Arriving early before the tournament's start, she could still slip into the Media Center to check emails without causing much fuss among journalists.

"Marion who?" surprised many by reaching the final that year, losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova.

This year, in the debut of the event's new format as the year-end Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions, the 25-year-old is in a very different place in her career and life.

World ranked 12th, she is the No. 1 seed for the tournament, and has been drawn in a difficult group in the round-robin event with Israel's Shahar Peer and Slovakia's Magdalena Rybarikova. She also holds a distinction that few players can claim: She is a Wimbledon singles runner-up, losing in 2007 to Venus Williams.

The highlight of her charmed run in London was her semifinal defeat of world No. 1 Justine Henin of Belgium, when she came back from a first-set thrashing to record one of the biggest upsets in recent memory. She quipped later that she had been determined to improve her play after spotting actor Pierce Brosnan among the spectators.

"I was able during those two weeks to do something," Bartoli said here Monday.

"I beat Justine, and that was the only match she lost during the whole second part of the year. It really meant something to me, because I made the top 10 and I qualified for the year-end championships in Madrid."

Another big difference from three years ago is that the Frenchwoman is noticeably fitter. She plays double-handed off both sides, which requires faster movement to set up to strike the ball.

She admits she was not as fit as she could have been a few years ago, and credits her improved physical fitness to her father, Walter Bartoli, who gave up his career as a doctor to coach her.

"My dad changed my physical routines, and the way I was training, and it really helped me get in better shape. I had the shots, but I wasn't able to do it physically day in and day out before."

The winner of Monterrey and Stanford this year, Bartoli just missed out on qualifying for the Sony Ericsson year-end championships in Doha that ended Sunday.

"Doha would have been nice, but this is a great tournament and a great opportunity."

The shaped-up Bartoli is having the last laugh with the journalists and tennis fans who once made fun of her lack of fitness, as well as her relationship with her father, who travels with her and is a constant presence at courtside during her matches.

"I tried not to listen too much to them, because nobody is perfect - even Barack Obama has his critics," she says with a laugh.

"I don't want to please everybody."

She says it was more about coming to understand her body type.

"I have to do it my way, for my type of body," she says, pointing to the difference in body types of the Williams sisters. "Venus is tall and lean, and Serena has muscles. Everybody is different."

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.