‘YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO BE A LOOKER…’
..…were the words famously used to describe tennis champion Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon in 2013. WELL, LOOK AT
Even the most ardent of tennis fans would struggle to recognise the Marion Bartoli standing in front of me today as the same Marion Bartoli who made headlines following her 2013 Wimbledon singles title win – and not just because it was her first Grand Slam win.
While commentating on Marion’s straight-sets victory over Sabine Lisicki, veteran BBC pundit John Inverdale said on Radio 5 Live: ‘I wonder if her dad did say to her, “Listen, you’re never going to be a looker. You’re never going to be somebody like a Sharapova, you’re never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.”’ An uproar ensued, and Inverdale was sidelined from Wimbledon coverage in the following years, demoted from his nightly show in favour of Clare Balding.
How did Inverdale’s comments make Marion feel? ‘I didn’t care whatsoever,’ she says firmly, fixing me with defiant brown eyes. ‘All I cared about was having my name for ever on that trophy. The rest? So what? Look at my weight. Is it going to change the fact I won Wimbledon 2013? No.’
Despite her nonchalance, when you meet Marion in person it’s hard not to make a link between the Inverdale incident and her dramatic physical transformation. Three years on from her retirement just 40 days after her Wimbledon win, and now a Central Saint Martins-trained fashion designer, the willowy Frenchwoman is coolly posing for the camera. ‘I love fashion and I love my new body,’ she theatrically declares in heavily accented English.
Ah, the new body. The 31-year- old talks about it a lot over the course of the afternoon, constantly steering the conversation back to the fact that she’s lost 30 kilos (nearly five stone) since 2013, currently weighs 51 kilos (eight stone), and has 9 per cent body fat. Her Instagram and Twitter accounts are full of links to news stories about her weight loss and numerous gym selfies. While Marion looks good in the photos, up close she seems exhausted. She’s shivering in the warm studio, where she offers an icy handshake. We walk to a café and she moves at a snail’s pace. She mentions that sitting on the floor to have her photo taken was painful because she has such bony buttocks.
Once seated, she orders a Diet Coke plus a glass of soy milk, to which she adds protein powder: ‘I’m having a shake so I can go to the gym later.’ I say she seems tired and she shrugs. ‘I have so much work all the time and when you lead this kind of life, it’s absolutely ruining.’ Her gym sessions – five times a week, taking in yoga, pilates, cardio, weights and ballet (she likes varied workouts) – are the only time she gets to switch off and relax, she says, undistracted by emails and calls.
Did you lose so much weight because you weren’t happy with the way you looked, I ask? ‘No, that’s not it. I built the body I needed to win Wimbledon. I was where I wanted to be. I shaped it to become a champion – my body was about power. Now I’m sitting sketching all day rather than squat-lifting 200kg, so I’m not eating the same kind of food. When I played I fuelled my body – I used to eat more carbohydrates and drink sugary drinks on the court. Now I eat vegetables, salads, grains and protein shakes to give me energy for the gym. If you look at pictures, I have the same body now that I had when I was 16, 17. I have a tiny frame but it’s my natural frame. I’m perfectly happy with where I am now.’ But nine per cent body fat does sound very low, I say. ‘Yes it’s low. But I’m not starving myself, it’s just the way I am. If you see me in three months and I’m 12 [per cent], I’m not going to bang my head against a brick wall. I’m just listening to my body,’ she insists. (Later I check with a GP, a dietician and a nutritional therapist and they all say the same thing: a body-fat percentage below 15 in women is dangerously low.)
Even if the Inverdale comment didn’t upset you, I say, it must have been annoying that worldwide attention was diverted from your achievement to your appearance? ‘No! It takes a lot to annoy me. I’m very easy-going.’ She now commentates alongside him on ITV. Be honest – do you secretly hate him? ‘No,’ she giggles. ‘Maybe I see life differently [to most people]. My father [Walter, a heart surgeon and her former coach] used to save people’s lives – that means something. What John Inverdale thinks? That’s less important. I care about my family, my friends, things that are important. He’d been on air since [early morning]. He didn’t mean to say it that way, trust me – I’ve talked to him about it. He respects me, my dedication to my sport, my hard work. We have a good relationship and I’ve moved on.’
She’s more gracious than many ➤
➤ women would be. While she shrugs off Inverdale’s boorishness, she does acknowledge that while male players are judged on their game, women players are too often judged on their looks: ‘I think the first comment men will make is, “She looks hot,” rather than, “She’s played well.” The mentality is starting to change but we’re far from where we want to be.
‘Everyone makes comments – they say you’re too skinny, you’re too this, you’re too that. If you start to think about what other people think you’ll never be able to please everybody and never be happy with yourself. I’m very happy with myself because I am the way I want to be.’
Growing up in Auvergne, Marion got the tennis bug the first time she picked up a racket aged five. She’d play against the garage door, until Walter, who put his medical career on hold to become her coach, bought her a ball machine. Girl and machine would spend evenings pounding balls across the local public court. Just before she turned eight, she wrote a letter to her parents saying that her birthday wish was to win Wimbledon. Twenty years later she did it: ‘I couldn’t believe it – it was too incredible to be true. To have my father with me that day, to share that moment with him… What I remember most is the look he gave me before he hugged me. That is the most powerful moment of my life. Maybe when I have my first child I will feel something as powerful,’ she says, eyes shining.
But just 40 days after the win, broken down by a plethora of injuries, including problems with her shoulders, knees and achilles, she tearfully announced her retirement. People thought she just needed a rest, but Marion was adamant: ‘When you push your body so much at some point you just have to stop. You can’t suffer any more. I couldn’t cope with the pain. I never played for the money, so I stopped. It was a very easy decision. Yes, I wish I could have won ten Grand Slams but the truth is that with my talent and my body, I had one Grand Slam in me. I’m proud of being able to fulfil the potential I had and that’s why I could move on without regret.’
Tennis is still a part of her life and she maintains a close bond with women’s number one player Serena Williams. They stay in touch via Whatsapp, and go out for dinner together during Grand Slams. ‘We were talking recently and Serena said, “I wish you weighed what you do now back then [in 2011, when Marion beat Serena at Wimbledon] because I would’ve beaten you!” When you’re facing a Serena Williams serve at 200kph you had better be able to hold your ground. There’s no way I could play against her now.’
Unlike her bond with Serena, there’s clearly no love lost between Marion and Maria Sharapova, the Russian player namechecked in Inverdale’s insult. ‘She wasn’t on the circuit to make friends,’ she says tartly. In March this year Sharapova was provisionally banned from tennis, after admitting she’d failed a drugs test. She claimed she’d taken a drug called meldonium for ten years for health reasons and was unaware it had been banned in January. What does Marion make of Sharapova’s situation? ‘If I had taken a product for ten years for my health, every single day I would have checked if that product was on the banned list or not. We all know doping is something tennis is taking seriously. You don’t want to put your whole career in danger.’
The other big talking point in tennis is equal pay, something Marion has spoken out about in the past. Men’s number one Novak Djokovic recently said that men should be paid more than women because more people watch the men’s game – is that fair? Marion chooses her words carefully: ‘ This is a bigger conversation than just about sport – women in business aren’t paid the same as men either. We’re moving in the right direction, having the four Grand Slams where women are paid equally, but we can make more steps forward on this.’
Home is an apartment in Dubai from where she can fly to London, Paris, New York and Melbourne to commentate on Grand Slams for BBC, ITV, Eurosport, ESPN, Fox Sport Asia and Sky Sports, among others. Dubai, she says, is where she recharges her batteries in the sunshine, but the last time she was home was New Year’s Eve. Does she have a partner? ‘No, it’s impossible. How can I? You tell me!’ Her life does sound frenetic. In September she will take part in the Virgin Strive Challenge 2016, which involves hiking, swimming, cycling and running from the base of the Matterhorn in Switzerland to the summit of Mount Etna in Sicily, a total distance of 2,000km. The
Challenge is organised by Big Change, a youth projects charity founded by Richard Branson’s son Sam and Sam’s cousin Noah Devereux. Marion, who took part in the inaugural challenge in 2014, has signed up for a gruelling 29- day stint – which means she needs to train like a demon for the next few months. She isn’t fazed: ‘Strive is all about the power of the team and crossing the line together every day. You are surrounded by love and care. The first one I did was incredible for me, doing a physical challenge without having to beat somebody.’ Her team-mate Holly Branson agrees: ‘It’s easy to see why Marion was so successful on the tennis court – her focus, drive and determination are unbelievable. A month is a long time and 2,000km is a long way. I’m glad I’ll have Marion on the core team to push us all on.’
Tennis aside, Marion always had a plan B: fashion design. As a child, she constantly sketched, made bracelets and purses, and created clothes on her mother’s sewing machine. Following her retirement, she immediately got on the phone to the prestigious Central Saint Martins’ admissions office to apply for its BA in fashion print. ‘ They said, “Why do you want to do this? You’re the Wimbledon champion.” And I said, “This is what I adore.”’
The degree was truncated to 17 months to fit around her schedule, with Marion matriculating in early 2014 just a few months after her retirement. She is now about to launch her first collection of women’s tennis wear for sports brand Fila – Love Fila by Marion Bartoli – featuring psychedelic prints and vibrant shades. She’s always loved colour – she’d set up an easel and paint to help calm herself before major tennis games. She’s in the midst of traipsing around the world to secure international stockists, while also designing her second collection, which she’ll present at Paris Fashion Week in September.
‘Fashion and sport are exactly the same – they’re very competitive and when you want to be at the top you have to work harder than the others,’ she says. ‘I do 16- and 17-hour days but I have this mentality, this willpower, when I am passionate about something. I wake up during the night with an idea for a design so I sketch it. It was the same in tennis – I would wake up thinking about an exercise to try the next day.’
She’s certainly not short of ambition, with plans to create a fashion-forward activewear collection on a par with Adidas by Stella McCartney. ‘I want a line with a strong DNA and iconic prints that get customers hooked,’ she says. ‘It’s about how can I find a way into Harrods or Selfridges? How can I design this tennis dress better than other brands?’ For a motivational boost, she keeps a video of her Wimbledon win on her laptop and watches it in hotel rooms ahead of tricky meetings.
Life since retirement has been an adjustment process, not least because for the first time she’s now truly independent: ‘I used to do everything with my father and I was protected. Now I’m thrown into things on my own, travelling the world and understanding that not everyone is nice and well-intentioned.’
One person who has been genuinely helpful, though, is Richard Branson, who she met through Strive. ‘He gave me advice on my new business. He said when someone is throwing you out of the front door, find a way to get back in through the window. So if someone says no to you, you keep trying.’ And with that she slopes off, reluctantly, to the gym. If you, a Wimbledon champion, are reluctant, I joke, what hope for the rest of us? ‘I am only human,’ she says, with a small smile. n For more information on the Virgin Strive Challenge, visit bigchange.strivechallenge.com. Love Fila by Marion Bartoli is available from Harrods, visit harrods.com