Tearful exit as daddy's girl Bartoli feels the force of Venus

Through a veil of tears, this French woman hardly anybody had heard of a fortnight ago addressed the crowd with conviction as Williams awaited her ceremonial anointing as Wimbledon champion for a fourth time. "This is a dream for me . . . and this dream is possible because of one person and one person only . . . my dad."

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Feeling the four-ce: Venus takes her fourth Wimbledon title

As Bartoli spoke,her father Walter fought to control his emotions in the competitors' box on Centre Court.He had abandoned a career in medicine to become his daughter's coach and he had no training to be placed under this fierce spotlight for the first time in his life.

He was at once proud and disorientated — a condition with which Williams' own father, Richard, could readily identify.

Richard Williams — a man easily caricatured as King Richard through his own pronouncements on life, tennis and all matters in between — turned round from his seat to shower Monsieur Bartoli with manly compassion. He can comprehend better than most what it has meant to be a tennis father. He has laughed and he has cried with his daughters, Venus and Serena.

The game has been at the centre of his universe since, years ago, he bellowed to the world from the unpromising constituency of a Los Angeles ghetto that his two daughters would place tennis in a stranglehold of his creation.

As he watched Venus celebrate in the sunshine that at last had been couriered to Centre Court, Williams offered Monsieur Bartoli words of consolation. The spontaneity of his action endeared him to all.

This day had dawned rich in promise for the French. Le Tour, a cycling extravaganza tainted with drug scandals, but nevertheless an event that galvanises the French nation for three weeks each summer,was in London for the first time. With Richard Gasquet in the semi-finals and Bartoli in the women's final, there was a realisation that these Championships had the potential to become Le Wimbledon. Yet, in a fraction over three hours, Gasquet and Bartoli had both been vanquished.

Bartoli had stolen overnight headlines,not just because she had ushered No 1 seed Justine Henin from the premises. Blithely, she had told us that she had determined to improve her game, after losing the first set in a blur because she wished to impress Pierce Brosnan, who was watching from courtside. Bartoli invited the former 007 actor to return to SW19 yesterday.

Brosnan could not oblige as he had to attend a wedding — yet with the style associated with such a lady killer as Bond he arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to Bartoli.

"He left me flowers with a letter in my locker room," said Bartoli. "That was really nice."

In truth, her day went downhill fast after that lightness of touch from the Irishman. Yet how can she berate herself for failing to prevent Williams from being reunited with the Venus Rosewater Dish she first won in 2000?

Williams made an utter nonsense of the seeding procedure. How could she possibly be considered the 23rd best player on grass at Wimbledon?

But she has run rings around the blazer brigade of the All England Club before, of course.Two years ago, she arrived with no form and was deemed a no-hoper by all those outside her immediate family. She left with the title, defeating Lindsay Davenport in the longest women's final in history, saving a match-point in the process.

"It was a really outrageous way to win," said Williams last night. "I keep that trophy by my bed.

"That one is special because so many people said I wouldn't win again.Afterwards I realised in my heart I wanted it more than anyone in the draw. I realised what a strong person I was, too. It really made a difference in my life."

Yesterday, her sister Serena, eliminated in the quarter-finals by Henin, joined the ovation for Venus as she stood to applaud with her mother Oracene at her side.

Between them, the Williams sisters have won Wimbledon six times in the past eight summers. Her triumph commemorated in appropriate style the 50th anniversary of the Wimbledon victory of Althea Gibson, the first black woman to be crowned on Centre Court.

And yesterday, Venus joined the illustrious company of Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf, who have all claimed the most prestigious tennis championship in the world on at least four occasions.

While the American was deserving of her triumph, Walter Bartoli had reason to believe that the day he ceased to be general practitioner in the small village of Retournac, near Lyon, had been a profitable decision for his daughter — even as he choked with pride on Centre Court.