Unlikely Team Finds Way to the Final By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY Published: July 4, 2013 WIMBLEDON, England — In this surprising Wimbledon, Marion Bartoli and her new coach and hitting partner, Thomas Drouet, are perfectly in tune with the theme. How to imagine, when Bartoli looked adrift in Paris during the French Open in the midst of a season of upheaval, that she soon would be radiating peace of mind at the All England Club on her way back to the final? How to imagine, when Drouet was out of job with a broken nose and a neck brace in early May, that he would be sitting in the players box on Centre Court, beaming down at his new employer in the sunshine? To repeat, it has been a logic-defying fortnight, and yet there it will be in the Wimbledon Compendium for decades to come: No. 15 seed Marion Bartoli of France versus No. 23 seed Sabine Lisicki of Germany in the 2013 women’s final. “Well, I believe as a sportperson you cannot have always some highs, and you have to go through some low moments to enjoy even more the highs,” Bartoli said. “But yes, I’ve been having some tough moments — most out of the court than on the court, to be honest with you.” Drouet can relate. In early May, Drouet, a 30-year-old from Monaco, was working as a hitting partner for the young Australian star Bernard Tomic and his father and coach, John Tomic. But on May 4 during the tour event in Madrid, Drouet sustained a broken nose and other facial injuries during an altercation with John Tomic outside the players’ hotel. Drouet has accused the elder Tomic of head-butting him and has filed assault charges. Tomic has denied the charges, claiming he acted in self-defense. A court date has been set for July 22 in Madrid, but for the moment, Tomic has been banned from receiving a credential at ATP Tour events and has been banned from the grounds at the French Open and Wimbledon. Drouet, however, is happily on site, working with Bartoli after her latest and perhaps definitive tennis split from her own father and coach, Walter Bartoli. The French Tennis Federation is providing support, including the counsel of the Fed Cup captain Amélie Mauresmo, the now-retired French star who won Wimbledon in 2006. But Drouet, a former Davis Cup player who has known Bartoli since they were playing junior events, has been her main day-to-day adviser on court here and described himself Thursday as her coach. “It has been an incredible series of events,” said Drouet, a thin scar still visible on his nose and another running through his eyebrow. “After what happened in Madrid, I wanted to go back to Paris to look for work. I read the newspaper, where I saw an article about Walter, Marion’s father, who is looking for someone to help. I sent a message, and two days later, I was at Roland Garros to start the work with them. And then after that, things moved on. I ended up alone with Marion. The feeling was good, and voilà, here we are in the final of Wimbledon on Saturday.” Voilà indeed. But Drouet said he was hardly ready to dismiss his accusation against John Tomic, over an episode Drouet has attributed in part to his efforts to protect the 20-year-old Bernard from his father’s aggression. “It will only all be finished on the 22d of July,” Drouet said. “We are heading to Madrid for the trial. I’m not letting it go at all. It’s very serious what he did to me. After it’s been judged, I won’t talk anymore about it. It will be finished, but I want him to be punished for what he did to me. It’s still in the corner of my head.” Drouet pointed to his nose and said he was in need of an operation because he was still not breathing properly after two months. But Bernard Tomic has continued to publicly support his father and even lobbied hard at Wimbledon, where he reached the fourth round, for him to be readmitted to the grounds. “I’m a bit surprised,” Drouet said. “Because Bernard came to see me in the hospital, and he said he was sad about what his dad did and didn’t want to see him anymore. Now, well, he’s not saying anything bad about me, but he loves his dad. So there you are. It’s the power his father has over him. “But we’ll worry about all that on July 22. Now, I’m just expecting one thing: that justice does its job. I know I’m the victim in this story.” Such downbeat matters seemed incongruous on this otherwise upbeat afternoon for the Bartoli camp. Bartoli had not won more than two matches in a row on tour all year before arriving here. Now, after Thursday’s rout of the banged-up and seemingly stage-struck Kirsten Flipkens, Bartoli has defeated six straight opponents at Wimbledon. “I wouldn’t have guessed she would ever make it back to a Grand Slam final,” the former Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport said. It has been six years since Bartoli reached the 2007 final, which she lost to Venus Williams. Bartoli has made her run this year without losing a set, through the particularly welcoming bottom half of the draw, once occupied by Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova. With all the upsets and injuries, Bartoli has not had to play any of the game’s true heavyweights: 17th-seeded Sloane Stephens was her highest-ranked opponent. Mauresmo had not planned to stay until the end of Wimbledon, but she is staying now: a consultant and dinner companion but also a symbol of all the changes in Bartoli’s life. A year ago, Bartoli missed the Olympics at this club because the French Federation refused to put her on the team after she had declined to play Fed Cup for years, citing her desire to continue training with her father during Cup weeks. But Mauresmo, who became the Fed Cup captain in 2012, persuaded Bartoli to take part and supported her as she decided to stop working with her father as coach for two separate phases this year. The first phase lasted from February to April; the second began last month after the French Open. The Bartolis were a close, iconoclastic tennis team since she was a small girl training outside the French national system. They based her game on that of Monica Seles, which is why Bartoli hits with two hands on both sides. But there is much in her tennis and her practice sessions that one will find nowhere else: from her eccentric service motion to her racket waggling before returns to the rapid-fire forehand drills she was doing with Drouet on Thursday. Walter Bartoli is not entirely out of the frame. Drouet said he spoke with him regularly by phone, and Marion Bartoli, who declined to elaborate on her personal problems Thursday, said she wanted her father to come to Wimbledon for Saturday’s final. “It’s very important for me,” she said. “My dad is associated with everything It’s super important to share this between a daughter and her dad. I think it wouldn’t be normal in a way if he wasn’t there.” Perhaps so, but Bartoli must have had so many doubts in the last six months, replete with failed coaching experiments and major mood swings. With her new team in place, she has rarely been in a better mood at a tournament. On Thursday, when she opened her eyes after her power nap before the semifinal and went out and took matters into her own two-handed ground strokes, she was hardly projecting wide-eyed shock. “I felt I deserved it,” Bartoli said of her return visit to Wimbledon’s final weekend.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 05:36:16 +0000