Marion Bartoli's trailblazing Nazgūl Open came to an end on Tuesday,
the Selesian qualifier losing 6-1 6-2 to top seed Serena Williams.
Interestingly, the three games that Marion won were all breaks of the
Williams serve!

The following article appeared on www.sanexwta.com:

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Getting to Know Bartoli March 25, 2003

As a young girl from Retournac in France, the closest Marion Bartoli
came to watching the best in women's tennis was on her television set.
Now it's very much a reality, having sent former No. 1 Lindsay
Davenport packing on Monday, she'll face current No. 1 Serena Williams
on Tuesday.

"It's very exciting to play the No. 1 in the world. Last year I was in
Juniors and my WTA ranking was only 300. So now I am Top 100 and I
play against No. 1 in the world. It's quite good improving, you know,"
she explains in her charming, accented English.

Bartoli vividly remembers the 1990 French Open final between Monica
Seles and Steffi Graf when she was six years old. It was the victor of
that match, Seles, who inspired Bartoli to play with two hands on both
sides and stand well inside the service line to receive serve.
Marion's father, Walter is a General Practioner, and was smart enough
to realize that his daughter had considerable talent, and sought to
get the advice necessary to maximize her ability.

At the US Open in 2001, she reached the pinnacle of her Junior career,
when she upset top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 4-6 6-3 6-4 in a tense
final and rose to No. 3 the ITF world junior rankings. Bartoli's no
stranger to success at Crandon Park either, as she reached the Orange
Bowl U-18 semifinals in 2001 and won the U-16 title in 1999.

The 18-year-old is currently the brightest young prospect emerging out
of France, along with Virginie Razzano, following the retirements of
former Top 10 stalwarts Nathalie Tauziat, Sandrine Testud and Julie
Halard-Decugis in the last two years. Indeed current French No. 2
Nathalie Dechy has been giving tit-bits of advice relating to the life
on the circuit, while Tauziat herself is Bartoli's Mentor under the
Tour's Partners for Success program. Good advice there too, you could say!

This week, Marion has had possibly the bizarrest of routes through to
the quarterfinals. Having qualified herself, she trounced American
wildcard Ally Baker 6-0 6-0, defeated both lucky loser Evie
Dominikovic (the injured Seles' replacement) and fellow qualifier
Marķa Antonia Sįnchez Lorenzo before Davenport retired trailing 0-6 in
their fourth round clash. Bartoli clearly has inherited her father's
intuition, as she smartly observed that Davenport's mobility was
severely limited due to a right hamstring strain. It's only fitting
that world No. 1 should be next on her agenda!

"For sure I have nothing to lose, just to enjoy and play against the
No.1. Because always some people say, 'Serena Williams is
unbelievable. She plays so well,' and everything, but I'm going to see
what it is really to play against the No. 1 in the world, you know!"
she says.

Away from tennis, Marion likes to go shopping, to the cinema and eat
in nice restaurants, or just have a "girls only" night with her
mother, Sophie, away from her dad and older brother. Currently,
Laurent Raymond (coach of fellow unorthodox French player, Fabrice
Santoro) is the coach who's assisting her, while Alain Tronqual is her
physical trainer back in France.
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I have added one new photo of Marion Bartoli. There isn't much about
her on the Internet yet, but I did find two good websites about her:
http://www.marionbartoli.com/ (her official website)
http://www.bartoli-online.fr.st/

I think Marion is one of the most interesting newcomers in women's
tennis right now, and could well turn out to be the best Selesian.

--
Andrew Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/seles/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/seles/selesians.html