Marion Bartoli claims that she has a 175 IQ. That IQ is higher the other published numbers of famous people, including Plato (170), Beethoven (165), Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking (160), the same as philosopher Immanuel Kant, but below that of chess players Gary Kasparov (190) and Bobby Fisher (187). Interestingly, Bartoli's father, Walter, is a chess buff.
"I hope to be that good in tennis one day,” she said with a laugh. "I did a test when I was younger, but I'm not really someone that is really telling everyone, 'Oh, I'm so smart.' I'm kind of hiding it. But that's how I am, you know. It just comes naturally. That's how I was born with."
Bartoli added that as much as she likes math and art, she’s glad she took up tennis.
"When I was really younger and watching the TV and saw Pete Sampras and lifting his trophy year after year at Wimbledon, even if I was good at school, that was really what was exciting me,” said Bartoli, who also said she approaches tennis mathematically. “It was not coming up with 20 out of 20 on math. Even when I was 6 or 7 years old, what was exciting me when I was waking up every morning, it was what I was doing after school: playing tennis against a wall."—Matthew Cronin