I've been wracking my brain, trying to come up with a bigger upset than yesterday's barnburner, in which Marion Bartoli, a plump, cheerful, star-struck (if not by her WTA sisters) French lass took out the top seed at Wimbledon, Justine Henin. The closest I can come, ironically enough, featured the only other woman who reached even a Grand Slam quarerfinal using a two-fisted grip on both sides: Monica Seles. That match was a second-rounder, at Wimbledon in 1996; Seles was shocked by journeywoman Katarina Studenikova.
So what was it, in the end, that enabled Bartoli to rock Henin's world? What reserves did she draw upon to find a way to play her A game on an A+ occasion, against the most consistently competitive, professional woman of this era? I believe it was that, at heart, Bartoli is a nice, simple country girl - an outsider in some ways, humble enough to keep her nose to the grindstone on the job, yet sufficiently impressionable and unaffected to have drawn inspiration from the most unlikely - and easily mocked - source: the presence of a movie star in the Royal Box.
This would sound awfully cheesy if it were part of a plot-line in the sort of novel we call a bodice ripper, and when she walked off the court and told the BBC that Pierce Brosnan (an actor best known for his portrayals of James Bond) had been her inspiration, I chuckled and rolled my eyes along with everyone else.
Turns out she wasn't spinning tales or fantasies. She reiterated the claim in her presser:
Now tell me that isn't refreshing, in its own wacky, You Meant It Was That????? kind of way. It's the kind of story a reporter hates to write, because it doesn't involve the deceased, the demented, the deliciously complex or a puppy that was flattened by an 18-wheeler somewhere outside Marseilles. Sometimes it is what it is, you know?
But don't for a moment think that Bartoli's heart started fluttering, and she began heartlessly flaming Henin. This is one clever little (5-6) player, even though she had never gone beyond the third round at a major before this Wimbledon,and often makes those who watch her think: interesting game, she could be good if only she lost a little weight.
What has gone unnoticed, mostly because of her own, previous inability to go deep at a major, is her original, lethally pared down game. Hitting two-handed off both wings gives her strokes great disguise; combine that with her penchant for playing from inside the court and taking the ball on the rise, and you have the equivalent of warning sign: Slippery When Met.
Bartoli has a sound grasp of strategy as well, as befitting a girl whose coach and father, Dr. Walter Bartoli, enjoys chess. You can tell that she knows a thing or two about tennis when she expresses sentiments like this:
Find someplace to play in her game. . . Anybody else think this sounds more like surgery than tennis? And that's the point. Dr. Walt must know his forehands from his forceps. And that role model, Seles, had a similarly efficient game. She tended to operate with laser-like trajectories and precision, although there's more lasso than laser in Bartoli's interpretation. But this brings us back to the very beginning of what has become our major women's story at Wimbledon.
Bartoli, is from a sleepy village and bastion of traditional ways in central France, Le Puy en Velay. According to my French colleague, Alain Deflassieux (L'Equipe), Dr. Walt was an old-fashioned doctor - the kind who would wake in the middle of the night and drive out a farm or lonely dwelling to minister to the sick. Bartoli grew up playing tennis with her family (mom Sophie is a nurse) at the local tennis club, and showed early promise.
But the lightbulb didn't go on over Dr. Walter's head until he watched the Steffi Graf vs. Monica Seles French Open final in 1992. He was so impressed by La Seles that he rushed home and pulled Marion aside. He told her all about Seles' two-handed forehand. Marion was weaker on the forehand side, and immediately adopted the grip. Viola!
Soon, Dr. Walter threw his black medical bag out the window in favor of a racquet bag and smart track suit, as befitting the coach of a promising youngster. In a nation that has offered its budding talents plenty of official, federation-based support, the Bartoli's steered clear of the establishment and shunned the fast track. To this day, Bartoli, while a perfectly nice girl, simply doesn't get very involved with the culture of the pro tour. You know how country people can be.
Off the radar of big-time tennis, Bartoli developed her accuracy and quick-strike style in a dank gym that was the next best thing to an indoor court in the Bartoli's village. She told us in the presser that Dr. Walt used to put out cardboard targets on a gym floor criss-crossed with lines for everything from handball to volleyball. She would stand with her back against a wall (this part, I believe, was more a matter of necessity than shrewd coaching philsophy) and fire away at the targets - while Dr. Walter fired away at her. She said, "If I was [even] staying on the baseline [instead of behind it], my racquet was touching the wall behind me."
