Mauresmo enters this week’s French Open with her sexuality as much an issue as her tennis, reports Stephen Bierley
`They exaggerate. You wonder what they are talking about. Complete bullshit. If I paid attention to everything that has been written since Australia, then I would be hiding in the house. I said everything then, so what more can I say?”
Amelie Mauresmo (19), the most talked-about women’s tennis player this year, was relaxing in her Rome hotel room, shared with her girlfriend Sylvie Bourdon, during the recent Italian Open.
About her relationship with Bourdon there is indeed nothing more to say. During this year’s Australian Open, when Mauresmo daringly and thrillingly reached the women’s singles final, the French teenager made it clear that Bourdon is her lover, that they are living together in St Tropez, and that they are deeply happy.
The Australian tabloid press responded predictably and, having salivated once, came bounding back in full cry when Lindsay Davenport, defeated in the semi-finals by Mauresmo, talked loud and long about the width of the French woman’s shoulders and her strength. “I mean, I thought I was playing a guy,” said the American, who at the time was the world number one.
Her inopportune remarks were compounded when Switzerland’s Martina Hingis, who comfortably defeated Mauresmo in the final, told a Swiss radio station Mauresmo seemed like “half a man”.
Davenport duly apologised, blaming the media for quoting her out of context. Hingis initially denied having made her remark and then said that “there was nothing to apologise for”.
Mauresmo was quick to make peace with Davenport, who had been nave rather than vindictive, but her relationship with Hingis was understandably soured. “I went on holiday and I forgot about it all,” Mauresmo said. “It is in the past.”
But the hurt hasn’t totally disappeared, even after a cathartic victory over Hingis in Paris in February. “I was too aggressive in Melbourne. I was focused on her … rather than the match. In Paris I focused on her game, and stopped her playing.”
With Mauresmo unseeded for the French Open, the two have now been thrust together in the second round, provided they both win their opening matches.
After the Australian Open, Mauresmo, the world junior number one in 1996 when she won at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, suffered an understandable slump. “The Australian Open was the longest tournament of my life. I wasn’t ready to play in America afterwards. I was mentally exhausted.”
Mauresmo talks quietly with Bourdon nearby, a protective ear alert to any awkward questions. The two have already had experience of the British tabloid press and are as wary as gazelles around cheetahs.
“I was a bit scared before the Paris tournament,” Mauresmo continued. “I did not know how the people would react to my recent poor results and to what I said in Australia. But it was a big crowd and everyone was supporting me. Most of the people are behind me in France.”
As the majority of middle-class French are always amazed that British politicians should be forced to resign because of a scandale amoureuse, so there are few eyebrows raised, and rightly so, over Mauresmo’s lesbian relationship with Bourdon.
“I cannot see that Amelie’s sexuality should affect anything,” Mauresmo’s agent said boldly during the Australian Open. But there are certainly those within the American-based WTA Tour, the women’s professional ruling body, who are unsure where to place Mauresmo in the publicity stakes.
Hingis has referred to herself, Russia’s Anna Kournikova and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, as the “Spice Girls” of tennis. Clearly Mauresmo’s sexuality is an embarrassment to some who still remember the days when Martina Navratilova revealed she was a lesbian, and found that overnight she had shed a number of endorsements.
It is to be hoped that Mauresmo will not encounter similar prejudice in what is supposedly a more enlightened era, although the myth of the Frenchwoman being some sort of tennis amazon has already taken a grip.
Mauresmo is 1,72m and weighs 63kg. In comparison, Venus Williams is 1,83m and 76kg; Davenport 1,85m and 78kg; and Mary Pierce, the French number one, 1,75m and 66kg. These are statistics taken from the WTA player guide, and are obviously subject to fluctuation with regard to weight. But clearly Mauresmo is no muscle-bound giant.
Yet Andrea Leand, a former United States player and now a journalist, wrote recently that “in one month [prior to the Australian Open], Mauresmo transformed her athletic build into a body-building spectacle”.
This is patently false. According to Philippe Bouin, the chief tennis writer of L’Equipe, “Amelie had this physique when she was 11 and 12. There is no doubt that it helped her at a junior level, but it is quite wrong to suppose it has been developed over the last few years or months.”
It’s true that Mauresmo works with weights, but then the majority of the top women, including Hingis, use the gym to improve their fitness and strength. “I go three times a week, just for 45 minutes or an hour. It’s normal,” says the French teenager.
The size of her shoulders, which are certainly considerably less developed than Serena Williams’s, were emphasised in Melbourne by her decision to wear a blue singlet produced by Nike.
“It was my choice. It is true that before the Australian Open I started to run more and work on my fitness, but if anybody had been watching me for the last couple of years they would know it didn’t make much difference.”
There is no doubt, just as in her junior days, that Mauresmo considers her athletic prowess a vital factor in her development, and she has no qualms about intimidating an opponent, but she recognises that mental aggression is every bit as important as physical intimidation.
“You need the tactical side too and Sylvie helps me emotionally and psychologically. We talk about a lot of things, not just tennis, and this is part of the breakthrough because she gives me confidence. By talking to her, I am stronger both on and off the court.”
Despite her stunning performance in the Australian Open, those who have followed Mauresmo’s career are cautious about proclaiming her the star of the new millennium. Most believe she will cement her place in the top 10 (she is currently number 18) but are inclined to think her shining light may be intermittent.
The player, for all the talk of her physical prowess, worries about her mental stamina. “I realised in Australia how intense it is to play for two weeks. My weakness is that maybe I don’t want to play all the time, and I cannot fight all the time. I don’t want to be involved in tennis every day of my life.
“I play tennis because I enjoy the emotion of it – the emotion of the relationship with the crowd. I like to give them happiness and they give it to me. Of course there is tension, but I like it.”
So far – in four attempts, the first as a raw 15-year-old – Mauresmo has not progressed beyond the last 64 of the French Open. But this time the expectations will be high.
“Of course the pressure is beginning to build. I know I could win this year, but my goal is not to win this time necessarily but to win one day.” The last French woman to triumph at Roland Garros was Franoise Durr in 1967, while Pierce was the beaten finalist in 1994.
“I haven’t really had the chance to talk to Mary. When she wins, the French newspapers say she is French but when she loses, she is American. Maybe she is not as French as me in people’s minds.” Pierce has said the same often enough, with many a tearful exit from the French Open.
The overwhelming impression Mauresmo now gives, after a pretty wretched time in her personal life two years ago, is one of considerable happiness. The one cloud is that her relationship with Bourdon has apparently estranged her from her mother and father, Franoise and Francis.
Hingis, yet to win the French Open, will start the favourite, with Venus Williams – having won two clay court titles this year, including the Italian Open – the player in form.
Bourdon will not be drawn into any predictions about Mauresmo’s chances, except that with regards to any intrusion by the media, “Wimbledon will be the worst”.
However, for the moment, all thoughts are focused on the red clay. “I might go out in the first round. But I have high expectations.”
Hingis beware!