'The Game Changer' - Marion Bartoli leads ambitious women's health campaign

Dubai-based former Wimbledon champion takes key role in new partnership between WTA and the Gates Foundation

Marion Bartoli has been designated as a ‘Game Changer’, a leadership role within the ‘Women Change the Game’ campaign. Getty Images

As an elite player on the WTA Tour, Marion Bartoli’s passion and determination were hallmarks of her game.

Now 11 years retired, having chosen to bow out at the top, she brings those traits to her post-tennis career, whether that's broadcasting or, away from the court, her support for humanitarian causes.

Her latest endeavour is deeply personal to her as it combines four pillars of her life: tennis, charity work, motherhood and her adopted home, the UAE.

Bartoli has been designated as a ‘Game Changer’, a leadership role within the ‘Women Change the Game’ campaign – a partnership forged between the WTA Foundation and the Gates Foundation to elevate women’s health and nutrition as a global priority.

Together, they have created the Global Women’s Health Fund with a specific focus on supporting women through pregnancy. Back on March 8, on International Women’s Day, they set a goal of supplying one million pregnant women in challenging circumstances with essential prenatal vitamins by March 8, 2025 – “We are well on track,” confirmed Bartoli.

“It's to make sure those women have a healthy pregnancy and that is why we have the programme of delivering them prenatal vitamins to make sure that the baby is born on time, the baby is born healthy and therefore will have a much better chance to thrive in the early stage of life,” Bartoli told The National in between commentary duties at Roland Garros.

“We are targeting Southeast Asia, we are targeting the UAE as well and we are targeting Africa. We are targeting the UAE because there are a lot of expats, a lot of women coming from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and some of them don't have access to all of the vitamins and the necessary nourishment that women need to have during pregnancy as well as the child when they are born.

“I am a mother myself,” she added. “And from my pregnancy I know how hard it can be, especially when you see your child being ill or malnourished – for a mother it is the worst feeling in the world, so I really, really want to make a difference.”

Bartoli, the 2013 Wimbledon champion, became involved after meeting Melinda Gates at the All England Club in 2022 alongside Billie Jean King and other legends of the WTA Tour who had convened to celebrate 100 years of Centre Court.

Now a full-time resident of Dubai, Bartoli, 39, described the conversation as a “trigger” to try and help.

“It was an eye-opener for us to see the problems that some women and girls were facing from around the world,” said Bartoli. “To be honest, I didn't have those numbers in mind, and when Melinda started to talk about them it was like a trigger for me to see that we had to do something and we couldn't just let the situation stay as it was.

“So, when the partnership came alive between the WTA Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I thought I could have a much bigger involvement and try to really help at my level.

"Knowing that I live in the UAE, I live in Dubai, and I had a connection with some of the Sheikas from the royal families, [I thought] we could really join forces and try and do something.

"I talked to the WTA about it, I talked to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about it and they really loved the idea. From there it has been two years of hard work to get things to move."

Those numbers that Bartoli mentions make for damning reading.

According to Unicef more than one billion women and girls lack access to the good nutrition and healthy diets they need to survive and thrive, with dire consequences for themselves and their children.

Across the world, the gender nutrition gap is worsening. Women and girls are 50 per cent more likely to suffer from malnutrition than boys and men.

And, while most expectant mothers in high-income countries take prenatal vitamins throughout their pregnancies, most women in low and middle-income countries lack access to this simple, often life-saving resource.

Prenatal vitamins provide key nutrients that dramatically reduce the risk of stillbirth, infant mortality, and babies born small and vulnerable.

“[Those numbers] make me feel very sad,” added Bartoli. “But once again, it is one thing to know the numbers and it is another thing to make them change.

“My role is really to make them change. My role is to be an active person, to make all those efforts daily to have a change for those women and have an impact on their pregnancy as well as the first days of the life of their child.

“And that is our role. We are completely dedicated to it, and I am completely dedicated to it myself. Whatever hard work it will require, whatever mountains I will have to move, I am determined to make a difference.”

As the daughter of a doctor and a nurse, Bartoli says “helping others is in my blood and my DNA since childhood”, and she is “proud and honoured” to have the support of such heavyweight backers as they seek to make a meaningful impact.

“I think the beauty of the partnership is that between the power of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the ground, the ability to really get things going, the ability to get governments involved as well, and on top of that, the WTA Foundation will really give us a platform,” she said.

So far, it has proved a fruitful collaboration. WTA title sponsors Hologic kickstarted things with a $1.5 million donation in March, while further backing was announced in Paris last week, including cooperation from the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Payment systems company Greenway pledged one per cent of all transactions made with Greenway cards to the fund, while Kirk Humanitarian put up $125 million for prenatal vitamins and said they will match donations from the tennis community up to an extra $5 million.

“I think we can have a tremendous impact,” added Bartoli. “We have seen it with the WTA when all those powerful women came together 50 years ago to create the WTA with Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and the first women, we have seen what it has developed into and how powerful the WTA is now. So, we strongly believe that when we get together, we have such a high impact.”