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Out and about: Mauresmo on and off the court
by Cindy Shmerler
(May 99)

Amelie Mauresmo's latest revelation is her strong desire for a spot in the Top 10.

Amelie Mauresmo is huddled in a corner of the players area at the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla., her elbows propped up on a table, her chin resting comfortably in her hands. With those much-ballyhooed broad shoulders concealed under a Nike T-shirt, Mauresmo hardly resembles the behemoth
she's been made out to be.

The tournament hasn't even begun, yet everyone wants a piece of her -- tour officials, sponsors, the Miami Herald, Out magazine. For a moment, the 19-year-old looks befuddled as she tries to figure out how to oblige all comers and still sneak in an afternoon practice session.

But with her girlfriend, Sylvie Bourdon, chatting several tables away, Amelie settles in, and an easy, albeit slightly crooked, smile creases her face. She delicately fingers the gold St. Tropez charm around her neck, a Christmas gift from Bourdon. ''I used to say yes to everybody. I used to be weak, like an object,'' she says. ''I can't be like that anymore.''

It was during the first week of the 1999 Australian Open that Mauresmo announced to French journalists that Bourdon, a St. Tropez restaurateur, was indeed her lover and that they could go ahead and write about it. ''We didn't want to hide,'' Bourdon says without flinching. ''I'm 31 years old. I came out when I was 19, so why hide now? We talked about it and decided that it's impossible to please everyone. Some people are going to treat you like s--- because you're gay. But most people are going to watch your game and how you play.''

Not many people took notice of Mauresmo's stunning revelation -- until, that is, she ousted top-seeded Lindsay Davenport with such powerful ground strokes that the 6-foot-21/2 American was prompted to say of her 5-foot-9 opponent after the match: ''A couple of times, I mean, I thought I was playing a guy out there, the girl was hitting it so hard, and I would look over there and she's so strong in the shoulders.''

Little did Davenport know how profoundly her comments would reverberate through the grounds of Melbourne Park. The flames were fanned even further when Martina Hingis, Mauresmo's opponent in the final, tossed in an off-the-cuff remark, in German to several reporters, that Mauresmo is ''half a man; she's here with her girlfriend.'' When Mauresmo and Bourdon opened up the newspapers the following morning, they were stunned to see that more had been written about their personal involvement than about Mauresmo's on-court achievements.

''That day was very hard,'' says Bourdon, who often plays part-time psychologist with Mauresmo, forcing her to talk at great length about intimate thoughts and feelings. ''The press didn't talk about her for the whole tournament. And then, after she beat Davenport, she opened the newspaper and said, 'Oh look, I'm on the front page,' and she was so happy.

''Then we started to read and there was this much on the tennis'' -- she spreads her fingers an eighth of an inch apart -- ''and this much'' -- widening her hands until they're a foot apart -- ''on the private life. She was really disgusted.''

Both women were particularly hurt by the amount of attention that was paid to the tattoo on Bourdon's upper arm, which features a sun rising behind a palm tree. ''They made it seem as if the 31-year-old was going to beat up on the younger girl,'' Bourdon says. For a fleeting moment, Mauresmo was sorry that she had been so forthcoming. ''Then,'' she says, ''I just thought, 'These guys are stupid,' and I knew I had done the right thing.''

Mauresmo was heartened by a sincere letter of apology from Davenport that was delivered to her hotel on the eve of the final. Hingis, according to Mauresmo, also made a half-hearted attempt to smooth things over at the trophy presentation following Hingis' straight-set victory in the final. (Hingis' apology was really more of a public-relations ploy; she has said on more than one occasion that she doesn't regret her comment, though she does recognize that she and Mauresmo must coexist on a tour in which most homosexual players remain steadfastly in the closet.)

Mauresmo got some measure of revenge when she and Hingis met in the quarterfinals of the Open Gaz de France less than a month later. Mauresmo, just back from a 10-day vacation with Bourdon at an island hideaway off the coast of New Caledonia, had suddenly become the talk of Paris. But as she and Hingis stepped onto the court at Pierre de Coubertin Stadium, the roar of the fans began to swell.

''The crowd was just unbelievable, unreal,'' says Mauresmo. ''I walked on the court first and I was like, 'Whew.' The way they supported me during the week was just great. But they were booing and cursing [Hingis] when she came out. I didn't even look at her. It's too bad. She's living in a cocoon, a gold cage.''

Hingis, who won the first set but lost the match, likened the experience to a World Cup soccer game in which she was the visiting team. Mauresmo went on to reach the final, where she fell to Serena Williams in a third-set tiebreaker. But the run propelled her into the world's Top 15.

''It was a weird feeling to see Hingis booed,'' says Benedicte Mathieu, a tennis journalist for Le Monde, Paris' most respected daily newspaper. ''But they were booing because she is homophobic. And this was at a time when the French have been debating about giving the same rights and privileges to gay couples that married couples have. There have been rallies in the street. The whole country is divided. On that day, they were [all] defending Amelie against Hingis.''

Mauresmo has gotten many messages and letters of encouragement, but none was more appreciated than the lengthy e-mail she received from Martina Navratilova (whom she has never met), whose public admission of her lesbianism in the 1980s cost her millions of dollars in endorsement contracts. So far, none of Mauresmo's sponsors, including Nike, Dunlop, Babolat, and Gaz de France, have hinted at disassociating themselves from her.

While most of the women on tour have called Mauresmo's revelation a non-event, some privately disapprove of the couple's very public displays of affection. ''I mean, I wouldn't want to see a man and a woman walking around hugging each other. Why should I want to see two women doing it?'' says one tour veteran, who insisted on anonymity.
The media, though, finds the situation downright titillating. A cover story in Paris Match (France's equivalent of People) that came out during the Open Gaz de France tournament featured Mauresmo and Bourdon not only embracing, but right on the verge of kissing.

''This whole thing is more of a worry to the media than to the other players,'' says another tour veteran who did not want her name used. ''No one gives a hoot about anything other than how she hits the ball. People get a warped sense that every woman who plays tennis is gay. When Martina [Navratilova] came out, she seemed to represent everybody. But times are different. Amelie represents nobody but herself.''

Mauresmo says that coming out was not only a cathartic experience, but a positive one in terms of her tennis. ''She's happier in her private life, and that has helped her tennis,'' says friend and fellow pro Sandrine Testud. ''She's very talented, and now that she's found a balance, it's just a perfect match.''

Ivan Brixi, Mauresmo's manager, says that ''from a tennis standpoint, Amelie is mentally and physically stronger than she's ever been. As a person, she is exactly the same -- intelligent, direct, honest, deliberate. You can discuss anything with her and she is always asking very good questions. She goes to the nitty-gritty. I think she is a classy person.''
 

Mauresmo was just 10 months old when her family moved to Bornel, a village of 3,000 people in the north of France. Her father, Francis, a chemical engineer, and mother, Francoise, knew next to nothing about tennis, but when Yannick Noah, a national hero, played Mats Wilander in the 1983 French Open final, they gathered Amelie and her older brother, Fabien, around the TV to watch.

Though she wasn't yet 4 years old, the exuberance of Noah tugged at Amelie's heart. ''When I saw him winning this French Open, I thought, 'That's what I want to do,' '' says Mauresmo, the magic of that moment still clear in her mind. ''I wanted to feel what he was feeling, all the emotions.''

Seeing their daughter shadowboxing ground strokes prompted the Mauresmos to invest in a tennis racquet and lessons at a nearby club. The clinic, however, was for 8-year-olds, and she was turned down. But Amelie persevered, and she was eventually allowed to play with the bigger kids. By the time she was 8, Mauresmo was already in a local league. The French Federation had taken notice, too, and offered to become a financial backer. At 11, she was invited to attend a special tennis school in the south of France.

''I left home at 11, which was quite young,'' Mauresmo says, her gaze shifting downward. ''Now, I wouldn't do the same thing. I was too young. It's just that it was always tennis, tennis, tennis. You don't see anything else and you don't live anything else. So for the mind, for being open, you don't see other things. You can't. And it's also a lot of solitude.''

Mauresmo constantly battled homesickness, and on more than one occasion she called her parents in tears and begged them to take her home. They readily agreed to do so, but before they could ever arrange a transfer, Amelie would phone back and insist that she was OK.

''There were some periods when I was crying every day and I wanted to go home,'' she says, ''and some periods where I was feeling good about playing and doing what I was doing. When I think about it now, I wouldn't say it was a bad memory, but it could have been much better. I still think I would have been where I am today if I had stayed home for two or three more years. But it's difficult because my parents were not knowing anything about tennis or sport at a high level. They had confidence in what the Federation was saying. So that's what we did.''

By the time she turned 13, Mauresmo had been transferred to the National Institute for Sport and Physical Education in Paris, a training center where France's Olympic athletes practice. There, she was teamed with fellow fledgling pros Nathalie Dechy and Anne-Gaelle Sidot. And while she still suffered from intermittent bouts of loneliness, her tennis game blossomed under the tutelage of Federation coach and former French No. 1 Gail Lovera.

Having spent so much time on her own, Mauresmo was quickly learning what she did, and what she didn't, want from the game. She was also learning to speak up. After three years with the disciplinarian Lovera, Mauresmo requested and was granted a coaching change, to Patrick Simon. In 1996, Mauresmo captured both the Junior French Open and Junior Wimbledon championships. She was also beginning to catch the eye of several agents and members of the media.

''I actually first saw her the year before she won Junior Wimbledon,'' says manager Brixi. ''She was playing a doubles match with another French girl, which they lost. But she was just awesome. Very athletic, a lot of shots. She served and volleyed. She had some of the best footwork I've ever seen. And she could do anything with the ball. She would miss occasionally, but she was very impressive. I was hooked.''
 

Mauresmo was hampered by injuries late in 1996 and all of '97, though she managed to win a $50,000 ITF Women's Circuit event in Thessaloniki, Greece, and close in on the Top 100. But again she voiced dissatisfaction with her coach, so Advantage teamed her up with South African Warwick Bashford. Again, Noah played a role in furthering her career.

''I met him [Noah] in late 1996 and we had lunch and we talked about tennis and goals I should have,'' Mauresmo says. ''The most important thing he told me was to have a career plan.''

At the time, Mauresmo had no idea that Noah was thinking of including her on the French Federation Cup team, a decision made easier after Mauresmo qualified for and then advanced to the final of the German Open in Berlin last May, defeating Davenport and Jana Novotna before losing to Conchita Martinez in the title match. Those wins moved her to No. 34 in the WTA rankings.

In July, Noah officially added Mauresmo to the Fed Cup squad, alongside veterans Testud, Nathalie Tauziat, Julie Halard-Decugis, and Alexandra Fusai, for the semifinal tie against Switzerland. When Testud withdrew because of an ankle injury, Noah had Tauziat, Halard-Decugis, and Mauresmo play practice sets to help him decide who'd play singles against Martina Hingis and Patty Schnyder. When he chose Mauresmo over the 30-year-old Tauziat (who had just reached the Wimbledon final), some insiders were surprised, and Tauziat was furious.

''But Amelie was so proud,'' says the  journalist Mathieu, who has known Mauresmo for several years. ''She put on the team jacket with the French flag on it and she just couldn't stop pointing to the flag and smiling.''

Though Mauresmo would lose both of her matches, she showed her tremendous talent, taking Schnyder to three sets and jumping out to a 7-6, 4-1 lead against Hingis before stumbling badly. Later that summer, she again took Hingis to three sets before losing, this time in the third round of the U.S. Open.

But while Mauresmo's tennis game was taking off -- she jumped 80 spots in the rankings last year, finishing the season at No. 29 -- something was missing. She was desperately unhappy.

Once again, she considered making a coaching change. This time, she turned to former touring pro Isabelle Demongeot, who had begun her own training academy in St. Tropez, a playground for the rich and uninhibited along the French Riviera. On the eve of their dinner together last November, Demongeot decided to bring along Bourdon, an old high school friend who had watched Mauresmo on TV during the Fed Cup tie and implored Demongeot to make the introduction.

They fell in love, and almost immediately, Mauresmo moved out of her parents house and into Bourdon's villa in St. Tropez, not far from Le Gorille, the popular bar and restaurant that Bourdon owns with her mother, Edith Guerin. (It was Guerin who gave Amelie and Sylvie matching gold bangle bracelets, Mauresmo's with a gold tennis racquet across the top and Sylvie's with a tiny diamond chip shaped like a tennis ball.) At the same time, Mauresmo signed on with one of Demongeot's coaches, Christophe Fournerie, who immediately sent her to the gym to build the muscles that would overpower Schnyder, Dominique Van Roost, and Davenport in Australia.

''Amelie may be 19 years old, but in her head, she's much more,'' says Bourdon, who sits courtside during Mauresmo's matches, exchanging not-so-furtive glances and screaming everything from ''voilą!'' (that's it!) and ''allez!'' (come on!) to ''bouge ton cul'' (move your ass). ''She is very sensitive and intelligent, which in sports is rare sometimes.''

But there's one aspect of Mauresmo's life that remains unresolved: her relationship with her parents and brother. Though aware of her homosexuality since an affair more than two years ago, the elder Mauresmos have strongly objected to their daughter's lifestyle and to her relationship with Bourdon. Neither they nor her brother, Fabien,  have spoken with her since she moved out of the house at the end of last year -- not even after her stunning Australian Open run.

''It's tough with my parents and for my parents,'' says Mauresmo. ''I'm not asking them to understand; I just want them to accept. But I think time will play for me. One day they will think, 'She is our daughter and we love her.' ''

Reached by fax, Mauresmo's parents said through a Paris representative of Advantage International that the family's policy is to ''remain very discreet and quiet about their daughter,'' but that ''they are very proud of her and her accomplishments.''

Bourdon, who's had no such problems with her parents (who are separated), has tried mightily to bring all factions of the feuding Mauresmo family together, thus far without success.
''In your mind, in the unconscious, of course, this is a very bad thing, because you need [your parents], even if you don't agree with them,'' Bourdon says. ''But for now, it's the best situation. I think that her parents are going to accept. Maybe now they don't know quite how to deal with it. But it would be nice if they called her and said, 'Oh darling, it's so beautiful what you're doing. It's so great.' ''
 

How will Mauresmo be received at Roland Garros? ''It's going to be incredible,'' says Mathieu. ''If Amelie thought there was pressure during the Paris tournament, it is nothing compared with Roland Garros. But I think she can handle it. She's a very clever girl and lucid about what she wants.''

But Mauresmo insists that all of the pressure is off, especially now that her life has become such an open book. ''There isn't much to say that everyone doesn't already know,'' she says with a laugh.
The French, says Bourdon, have an expression: faire la pait de choses, or ''this we hold and this we throw away,''  or in American-speak: ''Don't sweat the small stuff.'' It's a motto Mauresmo has adopted, knowing there's only so much she can control in her life. Her wish is that others learn to accept her as she has come to accept herself.