ABU DHABI // It is not often that an athlete gets to leave a sport at the top of their game.
But that is exactly what Marion Bartoli did when she decided to stop playing tennis in August 2013, 40 days after winning the Wimbledon women’s singles title.
The Frenchwoman did not drop a set while winning her first grand slam title, but she would only play three more matches before deciding to retire.
Almost two years on, Bartoli, 30, was in Abu Dhabi this week to speak at the International Conference of Sport for Women at Emirates Palace.
She said she was still proud of being able to walk away at the peak of her powers as she acknowledged the demands required in reaching the top, and her belief she had less natural ability than her rivals, which led to her decision to stop playing competitively.
“When I started in 2013, it was my 13th year in a row as a tennis player and I really felt it on my body,” she said.
“I have tried to calculate how many hours I have spent on a tennis court and it is probably around 45,000 hours, so you can imagine just how hard it is on the body.
“Plus, I really had to practice more than others due to my lack of talent.
“You have to understand all the layers you have to add on top in order to get your dream, and I really felt that I had nothing left to give.
“It took everything out of me to make it happen, so I couldn’t dream of a better exit.”
Since retiring, Bartoli has moved into charity work and her own fashion design brand business, but she has not completely left tennis behind, making occasional exhibition appearances.
She was in Abu Dhabi in March for Tennis at the Palace, and she said: “It is extremely important for me to be on the tennis court once in a while whenever we have time and just have fun with it, really. Being on the tennis court and hitting the tennis ball is really such a true pleasure.
“I miss it, but today it is not my primary goal when I am waking up.
“My goal is to work for my business, work for my fashion line, to work on my design, to work on my charity.
“These are the core of my days today and when sometimes I have my free time, I am just very happy to go to a tennis court.”
Bartoli spoke about her journey to becoming a professional tennis player at the conference and said she believed that the number of high-profile events in the region would encourage more girls in the Middle East to take up tennis and try to follow in her footsteps.
“We have Doha and Dubai as premier events here,” she said. “When you have the best players in the world coming for two weeks playing tennis, to showcase tennis to all those Emirati girls or Middle East girls, they can be inspired to one day to be in our place and play.”
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