Marion Bartoli hoists the championship trophy as she celebrates her victory over Sabine Lisicki. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPAOne of the defining features of Wimbledon 2013 had been Sabine Lisicki's smile. But the final of the women's singles on Saturday will be remembered for her tears. They started during the second set, temporarily abated during a brief comeback, and then flowed unstoppably at the end as she was overwhelmed 6-1, 6-4 by France's Marion Bartoli.
On a brutally hot afternoon at Wimbledon – not a sentence one has to write too often – it was a strange, anticlimactic end to two weeks of a women's competition that has thrown up surprises, controversy and consistently excellent tennis. The 28-year-old Bartoli won her first major title in her 47th grand slam appearance, breaking the record for late development.
Lisicki may have been the crowd favourite, but Bartoli is an eccentric and popular champion. Her family hails from Corsica, and she looks like a tennis player created by Asterix's Goscinny and Uderzo. She is a frenzy of compulsive tics on the court and an endearing oddball off it. She has an IQ score of 175, higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
The match-up against Lisicki, a grass-court specialist who is mildly allergic to grass, appeared to be an intriguing one. But the 23-year-old German – known as "Boom Boom Bina" for her aggressive, uncompromising playing style – appeared to melt under the heat and the pressure. "Boom" rather quickly turned to "Bust". Nevertheless, the presence of two wild outsiders in the Wimbledon final – Bartoli was seeded 15, Lisicki 23 – is a welcome reminder of the depth of talent in women's tennis. In the previous 15 months, all the major prizes in the sport had been claimed by three players: Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka. Williams, in particular, had been so dominant that opponents were said to start matches against her aiming not to lose 6-0, 6-0: a game-within-a-game called "bagel avoidance".
Wimbledon turned all the form on its head. Sharapova lost to a 5ft 5in, 20-year-old Portuguese qualifier called Michelle Larcher de Brito. Azarenka pulled out minutes before the start of the second round with an injury. Williams was brought crashing down by Lisicki in three electric sets.
Bartoli collected prize money of £1.6m, the same as Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are playing for on Sunday. Today's female stars clearly owe a debt to Billie Jean King, who brought the top female players together and founded the Women's Tennis Association in 1973. At that time, women received a fraction of the rewards of their male counterparts: in 1968, for example, King won £750 for winning Wimbledon, while Rod Laver received £2,000. Full parity was not achieved until 2007.
Last Sunday, to celebrate 40 years of the WTA, 17 former world number ones came together for an event at Wimbledon called 40 Love. Several of them – including King, Martina Navratilova, Martina Hingis – returned to the royal box on Saturday.
It is a testament to the quality of the tennis that equal pay has not been an issue during the Wimbledon fortnight. The match between Lisicki and Williams was an instant classic, while Lisicki's semi-final against Agnieszka Radwanska, which ended 9-7 in the third set, was even better. It was a crushing disappointment that she could not summon any of that form in the final. "I think I was overwhelmed by the whole situation," said Lisicki afterwards.
A further sign of the health of the women's game is that the debate has shifted on to whether men should play the best of three sets, instead of women playing five. "It's really becoming so taxing that I believe one day we will have two out of three sets in the grand slams," said Navratilova recently. "Otherwise they're going to be taking people out on stretchers."
Early on in the tournament, there was a minor kerfuffle when Andy Murray challenged Serena Williams to a match in Las Vegas – a throwback to King's "Battle of the Sexes" contest against Bobby Riggs in 1973. Williams seemed hesitant when the subject was brought up: "I doubt I'd win a point, but that would be fun," she replied unconvincingly.
No one was in any doubt that this match was unlikely to happen any time soon. Women's tennis does not need the publicity or the validation these days.
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