Mary Pierce on Her Toughest Years, Roland Garros Win & Life After Tennis | Love All w/ Kim Clijsters

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**Kim Clijsters** (1:06)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Love All.
We have an interview today. Blair, I love talking to just you, but I also love having a guest on as well. I'm excited that we have another great player on today's podcast that we can talk to and pick her tennis brain.

**Blair Henley** (1:25)
I am so excited and I feel like you're burying the lead here, Kim. It is Mary Pierce. I'm going to give her a proper intro as we often do, but I think you all are going to like the conversation as well because she just has so many layers.

**Kim Clijsters** (1:41)
So many layers.
For me, it was very special to be able to play against her when I won my first Grand Slam at the US Open in 2005 It was just to be able to pick her brain about it and just to get a feel for what she was thinking and feeling at that stage of her career. She's just a great champion and an even greater person. So I'm excited to have the chance today.

**Blair Henley** (2:09)
So we are going to talk to Mary and then after that, I was just in Cincinnati last week. So we're going to debrief. I'm going to pull out my notebook from Cincy and talk about some of the players that I spoke to. We're going to talk about Novak Djokovic. We are going to talk about Venus and Serena Devils, maybe even a little race for the world number one ranking on the WTA side. But first, as promised, she's been ranked as high as number three in the world in both singles and doubles and owns 18 career singles titles. In 1995, she earned her first major crown at the Australian Open. And then five years later, captured the singles and doubles titles at her home slam at Roland Garros.
She was also a US. Open finalist in 2005 And in 2019, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. So we'll be joined by Mary Pierce when we come back.

**Kim Clijsters** (3:01)
Hi, everyone. We are here with Mary Pierce, a player who I have loved watching when I was younger and had the opportunity to play against as well in my career, which was one of the highlights for me. So Mary, thank you so much for joining us on Love All. I'm super, super excited that you are here with us.

**Mary Pierce** (3:18)
Thank you, Kim. That's so sweet of you to say. It's awesome to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Yeah, that was really sweet of you to say that. It's funny when you say you watched me and then played me. So yeah, I can understand that because that happened with me for some other players too. So that's cool.

**Kim Clijsters** (3:34)
Yeah. Definitely in my junior years when you won in 95
That was when I was at the start of my under 14 junior career and just absolutely loved watching you win the Australian Open and admired a lot of things. I'll talk about that in a second because I have a lot of things that I want to ask you.

**Mary Pierce** (3:54)
I remember when you came on tour too, so I was like that.

**Blair Henley** (3:58)
Hi, Mary. If you wouldn't mind maybe just starting us off, giving us an update on where you are, how you are, what you're doing.

**Mary Pierce** (4:07)
Yeah. Awesome question. Thanks for asking. I'm in Florida. I moved back here about four or five years ago. I was living in the south of France before that. I spent most of my life, as you know, between France and America, I live both countries, so I'm in Florida right now. I'm still serving on the Board of Directors as the Female Player Representative of World Tennis, previously known as the ITF. We've rebranded now.