Paris (AFP)

On June 10, 2000, Mary Pierce triumphs at Roland-Garros and her "dream becomes reality". Twenty years later, she still embodies the last French victory in singles on clay in Paris.

"It's incredible to think that it's been twenty years and that, since then, I'm still the last Frenchwoman to have won Roland-Garros. And I did it in singles and doubles (associated with Hingis), I'm pretty proud ", smiles the former player, who celebrated her 45th birthday in January.

Pandemic forces, Roland-Garros, which should approach its weekend of finals, is pushed back to the fall, and it is from Florida where she resides part of the time, that she will live this twentieth anniversary.

This Saturday in June 2000, long blonde braid, black headband, and white rosary retained under a strap of her dress, Mary Pierce offers herself, at 25, her second trophy in Grand Slam at the expense of the Spaniard Conchita Martinez (6 -2, 7-5). Five years after the Australian Open, and six years after its first major final in Paris. A consecration received without effusion but with emotion, arms calmly raised to the sky and face long immersed in his towel.

"When I win and watch my team, it is so much joy and relief to see that my dream has come true after all these years of difficulty, of work. It is strong," she recalls to AFP.

- "Small voice" -

Two weeks earlier, however, everything nearly came to a halt for the Montreal native, born of a French mother and an American father, who subjected her to her brutal methods before she moved away from them at the start of the 1990s.

"Three days before Roland-Garros, I was not sure I could play because I had a shoulder injury. And every day during the fortnight, I was almost the first arrival and the last part, I was doing two hours of care before hitting the ball, two hours of care after ... These were huge days, "she recalls.

From his first turn, expeditious like the following three, a promising sign, however: "A little voice inside me said to me:" Maybe it's this year ... ". It never was to me I didn't say anything to anyone, I kept it to myself. "

From the quarter-finals, the current world N.7 offers three top 5: Monica Seles (N.3), Martina Hingis (N.1), then Martinez (N.5).

Against the American, his last chance shot between the legs became the winning lob remains "THE stroke of (his) career". "I impressed myself, I didn't know I could jump that high," she said again. From her epic fight with the Swiss in the semi-finals, she retains "the hour and a half on a drip" to recover.

- "The very last one" -

In the discreet joy that followed her coronation, one of Mary Pierce's first gestures was a sign of the cross. Because her faith, "what matters most" in her life, was recently reinforced after an inspiring meeting with the American player Linda Wild.

"I had a void in me. I was looking for something that would heal my heart of all my wounds. I still carried a lot of forgiveness and hatred towards my father," she opens.

One morning in March 2000 in Indian Wells, "I gave my life to the Lord. I felt something so incredible and powerful that it is difficult to describe", says the ex-world N.3.

"During Roland-Garros, it helped me enormously. I arrived in peace, changed inside, knowing that the Lord was in control and that I did not need to worry, explains- Before, it was so difficult to manage all the pressure, the expectations, the media, the public ... There, before my matches, I prayed and I put everything in the hands of the Lord. "

If the last French victory in singles at Roland Garros is his own, the collective imagination lingers, however, especially on that of Yannick Noah in 1983.

"Maybe because he's a man," says Mary Pierce. "I have a lot of respect for Yannick and for what he has done, he has a lot of charisma. Of course, he is the last man to win Roland Garros, but I am the last woman. And the last all in all. "

© 2020 AFP