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Mauresmo handles media with grace

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Posted: Saturday May 22, 1999 04:57 PM

There's Venus and Serena, Martina and Anna, Steffi and Monica, Lindsay and Aranxta. Only first names required for the fabulous array of female talent on show at this year's French Open.

But there's one, above all others, arousing the most interest here in Paris as the Roland Garros festival of clay approaches.

And yet before January's Australian Open, mention the name Amelie Mauresemo to your average tennis punter and you were likely to be met by a confused stare and stone-cold silence.

She had caused little if any stir in the wider world of sport. She was just another aspiring face in the swirling women's tennis firmament. Her Junior Grand Slam singles successes and senior final appearance at last year's German Open were indicators of rich potential, but no guarantee of the public getting to know her on a first name basis.

Now you can drop the Maursemo bit. Amelie will do just fine.

And guess who is the most requested player for interviews in the build-up to the French Open? Not Hingis or Graf. Not Seles or the Williams sisters. No, it's Amelie.

At which point it should be pointed out that it isn't merely her impressive on-court displays which attract such stifling attention, but also her off-court life.

En route to the Australian Open final against Martina Hingis this year, Mauresmo told French journalists that Sylvie Bourdon, a St. Tropez restaurateur, was her girlfriend and lover -- a revelation given scant attention until her 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 victory over the USA's Lindsay Davenport in the semis.

Now bear in mind the American is some five inches taller than Mauresmo and has a powerful game of her own. Yet after the match, the top seed said: "A couple of times ... I thought I was playing a guy out there. The girl was hitting it so hard ... she's so strong in the shoulders."

And indeed, Mauresmo does have broad shoulders and hits the ball with enormous ferocity at times.

Seeing it is one thing. A rival player talking about it is quite another. Davenport's comments became headline news.

The story escalated further when Martina Hingis made a throwaway remark in German to reporters, saying Maursemo is "half a man -- she's here with her girlfriend."

Amelie was on the front page of the Australian newspapers and was at first excited to see that she had hit the big time. Only when she read the articles did she realize it wasn't necessarily because of her wonderful performance in reaching her first Grand Slam final. Amelie was on first name terms with the public for quite a different reason.

For one so young, Maursemo has handled the situation with enormous grace. Which is just as well because there are many news organizations that won't rest until they get their own Mauresmo quotes on what should be the personal matter of her chosen lifestyle.

Eventually it will all go away, just as it did in the end for Martina Navratilova after her admission in the eighties that she was a lesbian.

Mauresmo's game hasn't suffered and she even had the satisfaction of beating Hingis in the quarterfinals of a tournament in her native France in February in front of a fiercely patriotic and supportive crowd. Those French fans will again be out in vocal support of Mauresmo during her run at the French Open.

Whether Amelie can make a charge all the way to a second straight Grand Slam final might just depend on how well she can turn down the dimmer switch on the media spotlight.

 

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