Former World No. 7 Marion Bartoli, who will be coming out of retirement to compete on the WTA tour has revealed that she first thought about it when she was suffering from a life-threatening illness last year.
Bartoli, a former Wimbledon champion withdrew from an exhibition tournament at SW19 in 2016 due to a mysterious virus, which doctors said was extremely rare and the medical fraternity had no clue about it before the Frenchwoman’s diagnosis.
But on Tuesday, the unorthodox player announced that she would make a comeback to the women’s circuit in 2018, targeting an appearance in the Miami Open in March, after her remarkable recovery from illness.
“If what happened to me in 2016 hadn’t happened, I don’t think I would have had that strong feeling of wanting to come back to the court,” the 33-year-old said.
“The start of this all came on the most difficult day of my life, when Wimbledon decided not to allow me to play the legends’ matches because they thought I could have a heart attack and die on the court.”
“From then on, I swore that if one day I was healthy again, I wanted to try to relive what I had been lucky enough to live three years before when I won the tournament.”
“What saved me at that time was tennis, by hanging onto the great moments that I lived on court — that’s what kept me alive.”
The 33-year-old is confident that she will be able to get herself match fit for her return in March.
“Mid-March seems realistic with the amount of training to be done,” she said.
“The day I play my first match will be a huge victory after what I’ve been through, and what I do on the court is just a bonus.”
“In terms of tennis, I’m at about 80-90 percent of my level from Wimbledon 2013 and physically I’m missing about 40 percent of that level, which at the same time is and isn’t a lot of work.”
