SEOUL, Korea - Having been stopped in the semifinal round six times prior to this year, Marion Bartoli had a career breakthrough in the first week of this season, claiming her maiden Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles title at Auckland, New Zealand. The young Frenchwoman has only been climbing higher since the title run, enjoying a solid summer season that included a run to her second and biggest career final in Bali, as well as a pair of Top 10 wins, over Nadia Petrova and Patty Schnyder. Come along to Seoul with the French rising star in the latest Player Blog.
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Saturday, September 30, 2006
Unfortunately, I lost to Eleni Daniilidou today. I'm doing okay, but things could be better. After finishing pretty late last night I got a fever after I got back to the hotel and didn't sleep well at all. I only got a few hours sleep. Playing the first match today was tough, because I've played a lot in the last few weeks. I just need some rest, and I'll see what I can do next week in Tokyo.
Eleni played really well. The surface here is a little slower than normal, which suits her game, because she uses slice a lot. The ball hardly bounces off the court. It has been a great week for her. I did my job as the No.3 seed and made the semifinals. I want to stay positive!
One of the highlights of my week was beating Severine Brémond in the second round; it meant a lot because it was an all-French match. Another thing I'm happy about is my consistency at tournaments in the last few months. I have been winning a lot of matches, including here. My results week to week are becoming more consistent. I'm enjoying being on the court and playing good tennis.
I'm excited to go to Tokyo; I'm always excited to play a new tournament the next week. It's going to be new conditions, a little quicker than here. We'll see how I recover. Hopefully I'll be okay! There are some French players heading there, from the men's side, so that will be fun.
I'm also pretty excited about my birthday, which is on Monday coming up. I am really excited to see what my present will be and to hear everyone singing "Happy Birthday!" I love cake. I really love chocolate cake. I actually make a lot of desserts myself, like chocolate, crêpes, apple pie; I also like cooking fish, meat and vegetables, but cooking deserts is my favorite. I'm making some ice cream back home too.
I want to thank you all for your support this week, and I hope I can keep improving and bring more victories. Thanks for all of your help, all the time.
Sincerely,
Marion
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Hello everyone!
I just came off the court from my quarterfinal match against Akiko Morigami. It was really, really tough. I won in three sets. We hadn't played in a while, and she was playing well. It was a great match. I'm happy about the level of my game.
There was one strategy I forgot to keep in mind, though. We both play with two hands on both forehand and backhand, and when you are playing against someone like this, it's not always a good idea to play too many angles, because they can give them back to you even better. It would have been better for me to change the direction of the ball more to move her around. But anyways, I was able to adapt tonight and make it through to the semifinals, so I'm happy.
The reason I play double-handed is Monica Seles. I've looked up to her since I was a child. I was seven years old and playing with a one-handed forehand but I was having a hard time because it was a little bit of a weakness. Then, my dad watched Monica play Steffi Graf in the 1992 Roland Garros final, and the next day came to me and asked me to start playing with two hands on the forehand as well. Of course, I have been playing like this ever since then.
Like I've been saying all week, my goal since the beginning has been to reach the final. People have been asking me how it feels to be the highest seed left in the draw, but I don't really look too closely at this. I just keep focusing on my game, trying to play well on each point, improve every time I play, and so on. Rankings and seeds are important but not when you're playing a match. For instance, Martina Hingis lost to Sania Mirza yesterday, even though Hingis beat her easily last week. The game is about how you play on the court. I'm now one match away from the final.
My next opponent is Eleni Daniilidou. I played her once before, but she retired from that match with an injury. I can't really count on looking back at that for experience. Both of us have reached the semifinals and we're both playing well. I'll see what I can do. I have no plan going in; I will figure it out on the court.
Anyways, I have to go now because a lot of the restaurants here close pretty early, and it's pretty late right now - the matches before me today went so long! Also, I want to get to bed early because I have the first match tomorrow.
I'll talk to you after that!
Marion
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
Hi everyone,
I just came off the court from my second round match with Severine Brémond. We didn't know if we were going to play indoors or outdoors, or if we were going to play today at all. The rain would stop and start and it was getting really boring. All I usually do during these delays is try and eat some food and look for relaxing things to do to keep my mind off the rain. But we did get to play in the end, and it was a very tough match. We both played really well. She played a lot of drop shots, so I had to run a lot and focus, and I'm happy to get through in straight sets, 76(1) 61. The first set was close but it was a little easier in the second.
I remember playing Severine in some French tournaments a long time ago, not on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour or ITF Women's Circuit. I was younger than her and she'd always beat me. Then, I beat her once, in the French Championships, on clay, and we didn't play for six years, until today.
One thing I've had fun with this week is playing this game on the Nintendo DS, Cérébrale Académie (Big Brain Academy). I played it a lot last night. You have 60 seconds per category and there are five categories: think, memorize, analyze, compute and identify. The better answers you have and the quicker you give them, the better score you have. Last night I broke the record of the master of the game! Once you are done, it gives you the weight of your brain. The master of the game has one kilogram, 69 grams; I got more than two kilograms!
I'm playing late tomorrow so I'm quite lucky, because I played pretty late tonight. Now I'm gonna go back to the hotel, get ready and get a nice dinner, then probably get lots of sleep tonight. I sleep a lot - usually 10-12 hours a night. A few weeks ago in Bali, when I got there the first day, I went to bed at 11pm on Friday night and woke up at 6pm on Saturday. That's about 19 hours. And when I got up I looked around and it was still night-time.
Tomorrow I play Akiko Morigami, who, like me, is a double-handed player on both sides. We played once a few years ago. I'll think about my tactics tomorrow, when I'm warming up, just to not put too much pressure on myself. I like to stay relaxed before a match.
Talk to you after the match!
Marion
