Bartoli's retirement caught nearly everyone by surprise

• Marion Bartoli announced her retirement Wednesday night after a loss
• It took most%2C including members of her team and the WTA%2C by surprise
• Her Wimbledon win%2C as she suggested%2C will be remembered

MASON, Ohio — This is Marion Bartoli we're talking about. Make that former tennis player Marion Bartoli.

She's always done things her way. So maybe it should surprise no one, this retirement from out of nowhere, but after spending much of Wednesday, which turned out to be the last day of Bartoli's first career, watching her practice and play, talking to her and people who know her, it sure surprised me.

Citing physical issues, lack of will and other goals Bartoli retired at an unannounced news conference after her loss Wednesday in the Western & Southern Open: "It's time for me to retire and to call it a career. I feel it's time for me to walk away actually."

Actually I'm confused.

AGENT

Wednesday morning her agent, Carlos Fleming, suggested nothing of the sort. Fleming, who also represents Venus Williams and others, has represented Bartoli for five of the 10 years she's been with IMG.

He talked about her new coaching team. With Thomas Drouet as coach and hitting partner, with Amelie Mauresmo and Bartoli's father, Walter, as advisers, with the French federation providing support as needed.

He complimented her game — how her efficiency has helped her on court, how she's managed to maximize her potential and more.

Fleming gushed about Bartoli as person: "She's just one of the purest, most genuine hearts of anyone I've ever worked with."

He commented on their sports marketing goals for Bartoli. In addition to existing sponsors Prince and Lotto they're in talks with three others. There's also more tournament and exhibition interest, along with bigger appearance fees.

"Already her marketability is on the rise," Fleming said. "Establishing some strong partners in the French market is our first objective, to make sure she's being activated in her home market."

If Fleming knew about Bartoli's impending announcement, he didn't let on.

WTA

Neither did the WTA. They came by to talk to two of us in the media room about the timing of Bartoli's post-match interview as we also requested Bartoli's opponent, Simona Halep.

The news conference would be at 9:15, it was decided. (Bartoli's match started at 7:07 and ended at 8:51.)

The Halep interview came and went. 9:15 came and went. Someone thought they heard the interview was changed to 9:50, but the media room television displayed the original time. The WTA, atypically, provided no update.

I talked to Bartoli on Monday, but I had additional questions for the profile I was writing. By 10:15 I had packed up my laptop, zipped up my purse. It was late. I could always ask Bartoli the questions tomorrow, right? BARTOLI WOULD STILL BE A TENNIS PLAYER TOMORROW, RIGHT?

PRACTICE

Nothing about Bartoli's 3:30 practice session on Court 13 said otherwise.

She practiced as hard as ever. You could see it from the sweat on her purple tank top. You could hear it from the applause of fans, albeit some of whom watched as they awaited Rafael Nadal's arrival one court over. Applause, not common on practice courts, rang out several times during an especially demanding drill. (At which point Bartoli couldn't resist a little smile or two for fans.)

The familiar contraptions, those were there, too. Bartoli hit groundstrokes with elastic rope attached from back fence to ankles and serves with elastic rope attached from net to wrist.

"People are thinking, 'Hmm, she won Wimbledon — so something's right'," said a longtime fan, an older woman with a red handkerchief on her head.

"This girl is serious," added a biker-looking guy in surprise and admiration.

MATCH

During her match, too, Bartoli was mostly herself. She returned serve from way inside the baseline. She swung her racket around as she waited to receive. She sprinted to the baseline. She did shadow swings and hyper hops. She looked at her coach and certain folks in the crowd.

Perhaps Bartoli looked deeper in thought than usual as she walked along the baseline. Or a little too tired after some of those balls she chased down and drilled back at acute crosscourt angles with her two-handed strokes.

And if something had to indicate that maybe — just maybe — Bartoli was over it (it being tennis), it would be three things that happened toward the end of her last service game. Down 1-4 in the third set but up 40-0 in the game, Bartoli double faulted. Three times in a row. Was it really three times in a row? You weren't sure because Bartoli didn't seem bothered enough, surely not bothered enough to fight back. Bartoli would go on to lose the next six points and the match.

HALEP

After the match Halep, who lost her two previous matches against Bartoli, attributed this win to changing her tactics after losing the first set.

"I just tried to play more aggressive and to serve a little bit more on her body," said Halep. (She also tried not to focus on what Bartoli was doing because it made her "tired".)

Was anything different this time? Actually yes, offered Halep sincerely: "I think it was difficult for her to play after winning Wimbledon. There it was grass. And I also think she was very happy after that."

But you won three titles recently? "Yeah, but I didn't win Grand Slam — big difference," said Halep, laughing. Halep enjoyed every match, but it wasn't the same. She wasn't, she said, "big happy."

BARTOLI

The "big happy" thing — now that makes sense. In just the first 30 seconds of an interview on Monday, Bartoli described winning Wimbledon as "more than awesome" and "beyond crazy", "pure happiness" and "pure joy".

Said fellow Wimbledon winner Andy Murray of Bartoli later that day, "I think the best compliment you can give someone as an athlete is that I think that she's reached her potential, and that's all you can do. She's got everything out of her game that she can, and it's great to see."

Maybe Bartoli really has done all she dreamed: "Even if it's just my only Grand Slam — I hope I will win more but even if I just have one — gosh, it's worth every single drop of sweat I had out there for more than 20 years."

Maybe she wants to leave with that feeling fresh in her mind and won't if she sticks around a few years and doesn't win another Slam. Maybe nothing more is plausible and nothing less acceptable.

Maybe it's all too much, veering from the highs of winning seven matches at Wimbledon to losing her first match in Mason. Not to mention all she referred to when she said she's "been through so many downs" earlier this year.

Maybe it's all the reasons Bartoli mentioned at her retirement news conference. She said many things there.

Still we're left with maybes, left to wonder why she's leaving, if it's too soon, whether she'll regret it. Most of all maybe we wonder because otherwise we're left to focus on the reality that an original, exceptional woman many of us only just started loving out loud is leaving a game we love behind.