Anytime before, during, or after a tournament, it's an interesting task to collate various snippets of opinion tennis scribes pour about Marion. But this week is different. This past week since Stanford it has simply been nice to vicariously sip a cool beer with the pres, and let the fevered brow of the press quiver a little.

So let's now sum up a few of the more salient opinions that have reared above the canopy...

One lady you might not be going for a beer with is Steph Myles, who suggested after the Jankovic match "miserable Marion" "looked like she needed some Tums, or a stiff Scotch", and much more besides...

Yet by Sunday all the Montreal gazetteer could muster was how Marion beating Venus was a "serious shocker" and left it at that.

On the other hand there are tennis journalists who have opted to go with the mood music. Two months ago I wrote, "You know, rather than being a sign of weakness that Marion refuses to break the coaching relationship with her dad, her strong and consistent defence of him, totally against the grain of popular opinion, is actually a sign of Marion Bartoli's remarkable guts and strength of character. I think people now in 2009 are coming round to seeing this, a grudging respect."  

Steve Tignor (tennis.com) is a case in point. At the end of last season he wrote how "The top WTA players have been MIA for years. Any series where Marion Bartoli and Dominika Cibulkova finish second and third isn't the greatest of anything."

But along with his cohorts Tignor has subsequently recalibrated his position and sounds a little more sanguine about Marion this time around..

"She and her father have... one very distinctive version of how the sport can be played in the post-Seles era."

“For better and for worse, Bartoli is unique; her game has a personality, even if it’s an eccentric's.”

“Was it survival of the fittest? Uh, not quite. Let’s call it survival of the maddest.”

There is method in the madness of course.  "A lot of that has been down to her father and coach Dr FRANK Bartoli" writes Simon Reed authoritatively(! lol) He concludes on a kind note, "Conventional it isn't, but the result is a player who is amongst the most exciting and aggressive to watch on the circuit.

It's an approach that has always raised eyebrows - and I've always marvelled at the way they've managed to balance an unusual player-coach relationship with a sound father-daughter relationship.

But the Bartoli’s will always go their own way, and women's tennis is a more interesting place for their presence" Bartoli Happy To Sing Own Song

Perhaps the most effusive praise cum confessional was penned by Patricia Davies on mvn.com, "Those French, they get all the good stuff, especially when it comes to the production of talented tennis players. Marion Bartoli has proven to be their most talented woman as she convincingly upset Venus Williams at Stanford"

"Marion inspires more than a small amount of guilt in me.  I have flamed her for ages, mostly because of her very odd style of play, but even more for how she looks."

"Bartoli now seems more and more like a rare flower in a hothouse of much bigger baseline-bashing babes

A good day for women's tennis! Go Marion!"

If you read these and other post-Stanford articles you will find that the praise is rarely unqualified and still relatively small beer. BUT... it has changed, definitely became a bit more positive in tone. Marion's performances so far have caused some people to re-evaluate their position on her as a player, if not him as a coach. It's satisfying as far as it goes to see the Bartoli's enjoy some respect and acclaim in the press, it's good, it's welcome. But I don't think Walter will be losing much sleep over it one way or the other.

PS..... Beer? YUK!!!