By Nick Georgandis

While it came as a complete shock to most tennis fans when Marion Bartoli announced her retirement from the pro tour on Wednesday, it's far from the first time that a pro tennis player, particularly a female - has retired while still at the top of her game.

Bartoli is ranked No. 7 in the world - most of that due to winning Wimbledon six weeks ago, but even without playing the rest of the year, she'll still wind up just outside the Top 10, finishing the year with a 22-13 record and her career with 490 wins and 298 losses.
Here's a quick look at other players who have retired while still at or near the top of their games.

Elena Dementieva - Hung it up at the end of the 2010 season despite finishing the year ranked No. 9 in the world and reaching the French Open semifinals.

Kim Clijsters - She retired the first time to start a family, and the second time to go about raising it properly. Even playing just seven events in 2012, she was ranked No. 25 in the world, and was briefly No. 1 again in the beginning of her last full season - 2011.

Justine Henin - Like fellow Belgian Clijsters, she retired twice, although both times were due to injury. When she hung it up after the 2011 Australian Open, she was still ranked No. 13 and only 28 years old.

Monica Seles - The aftermath of her on-court stabbing in 1993 cost her untold riches, fame and Grand Slams. She hung it up for good in May of 2003 after losing in the first round of her favored Roland Garros while ranked 12th in the world and seven months short of her 30th birthday.

Steffi Graf - After injuries wore on her in 1997 and 1998, she reached the French Open and Wimbledon finals in 1999, winning Roland Garros and becoming the first Open Era woman to defeat the No. 1, 2 and 3 players in the world in the same tournament. After Wimbledon, she admitted she had nothing left to accomplish in tennis, making her the sport's equivalent to football's Jim Brown, who retired after nine seasons and said nearly the same thing.

Bjorn Borg - Perhaps the most talked about "What If?" retirement of all time. When he walked off the court after losing the final of the US Open in 1981, he had won four of the last five Wimbledon titles, the last four French Open titles and reached three of the last four US Open championship matches. He was also just 27 years old. His attempted comeback in 1991 was a colossal failure, and he would later reveal in HBO's "Fire and Ice" documentary that he left the game the first time when he just couldn't take John McEnroe surpassing him as the game's best player.