In an interview, 2013 Wimbledon winner Marion Bartoli spoke for the first time about her motives for her intended comeback. She sharply criticized her ex-boyfriend and blamed him for her big weight fluctuations. Now she wants to prove herself most of all that she has the ability to become a top player again.
“I have been destroyed by someone,”said Bartoli to the L’ Equipe,”I never thought I could have done so” The Frenchman achieved her greatest triumph so far in 2013, beating Sabine Lisicki from Germany in the final of Wimbledon to win her first Grand Slam tournament.
Only a few weeks later, she decided to end her career:”When I resigned, I was the happiest person on earth,”Bartoli said. But countless comments from her then boyfriend, with whom she had been in a relationship since May 2014, increasingly discouraged the 33-year-old.
“He told me every day that I was fat. Whenever we saw a slender woman on the street, he explained how beautiful and thin she was,” Bartoli got mental problems and lost a lot of weight in no time. In addition, there was a viral disease that additionally weakened her and drove her into anorexia.
“A performance in Wimbledon 2016, where she was unable to compete in a legend match because of her physical problems, was her all-time low.
I want to prove to myself that I am alive, that I can play these big matches and feel the emotions again,”explained Bartoli.
Bartoli is currently preparing for her comeback at the national tennis centre in Paris. On some days she spends more than twelve hours there and has a lot of fun:”I wake up happily every day because I’m healthy,”she says happily.