Wimbledon Champion Marion Bartoli Retires From Tennis

Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli has announced her retirement from tennis at the age of just 28 due to persistent injuries.

The Frenchwoman beat Sabine Lisicki to win her sole grand slam title at SW19 just 40 days ago, a feat which lifted her to seventh in the world rankings, but announced her decision to step away from the game on Thursday following her loss to Simona Halep at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati.

"It's time for me to retire and to call it a career," Bartoli told reporters in a tearful press conference. "I feel it's time for me to walk away."

Bartoli put her decision down to a succession of injuries that have troubled her throughout 2013.

"My body just can't do it anymore," she added. "I've already been through a lot of injuries since the beginning of the year.

"I've been on the tour for so long and I really pushed through and left it all during that Wimbledon.

"I really felt I gave all the energy I have left in my body. I made my dream a reality and it will stay with me forever, but now my body just can't cope with everything.

"I have pain everywhere after 45 minutes or an hour of play. I've been doing this for so long, and body-wise I just can't do it anymore."

The 2007 Wimbledon runner-up tasted her first major success six weeks ago in her 6-1 6-4 win over German Lisicki, and has revealed how she pushed through the pain barrier in order to realise a childhood dream of lifting the championship on Centre Court.

"When you dream about something for so long and you've been on tour for many, many, many years and you've been through ups and downs and highs and lows, and already a lot of injuries since the beginning of the year, my body was really starting to fall apart, and I was able to keep it together, go through a lot of pain throughout Wimbledon and still make it happen.

"That was probably the last little bit of something that was left inside me."