BY CAROL SLEZAK STAFF REPORTER

As coming-out parties go, the Australian Open was quite a bash for Amelie Mauresmo. She knocked off world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals before losing to Martina Hingis in the final. And, oh, by the way, did you hear she is gay?

In Chicago and much of the United States, the story didn't receive the play it did in the rest of the world. In Europe, television ratings for the Open were up 46 percent. Australia's television ratings were off the charts. Everyone was watching Mauresmo.

The 19-year-old from France with the long hair and broad shoulders caused quite a stir, all right. But after viewing the sensationalistic headlines in the foreign press, after reading certain comments from Hingis and Davenport, after hearing Nike's assertion this week that it will not dump Mauresmo from its stable of endorsees, I'm perplexed. Exactly what is all the hullabaloo about? Is it about Mauresmo's sexual orientation or about her big muscles? Why, it's because she's gay, of course.

When Hingis told the German press, ``Sie ist ein halber Mann,'' which translates to ``She is a half-man,'' she was referring to Mauresmo's homosexuality, no doubt about it. But wait a minute. Davenport had this to say about Mauresmo: ``The way she hit--and those shoulders--a couple of times I thought I was playing a guy.''

Hmm, sounds like Davenport was talking about her muscles. And those sensationalistic newspaper headlines? Well, the word ``muscle'' figured prominently in many of them. See why I'm confused? Pat Griffin, a University of Massachusetts professor whose book, Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sports, explores these issues, said it's both. ``You can't pull the two apart,'' Griffin said. ``Muscles and lesbianism are too intertwined.''

But what if Mauresmo was a tiny, skinny woman with no apparent muscles, I asked. What would people say then? ``They'd probably say, `Oh, she doesn't look like a lesbian,' '' Griffin said.

At 5-9 and 145 pounds, Mauresmo is an imposing physical specimen. But there are bigger women on the tour, not the least of which is the 6-2, 175-pound Davenport. ``From reading the accounts in the newspaper, I was expecting Mauresmo to look like the Incredible Hulk,'' Griffin said. Not even close. In terms of size, she's somewhere between Ally McBeal and Xena, Warrior Princess.

Which makes Davenport's comments particularly disturbing. Hingis' mean-spirited words had the primary effect of making herself appear ignorant. But Davenport ultimately might have done more harm to young female athletes.

``The message to young women becomes that if you look like you work out, if you're strong, then you're not `hetero-sexy,' '' Griffin said. ``It discourages women from achieving their athletic goals.'' After all, you don't hear NFL quarterbacks complaining, ``Reggie White's muscles are just too big.'' Mauresmo also has been the subject of steroid rumors. ``Of course,'' Griffin said. ``It goes back to the issue of a female athlete being unambiguously strong. She can't look that way and be normal.''

Speaking of normal, shortly after winning the Australian Open, Hingis posed for photos on a Melbourne beach. She wore a red halter-top mini and high-heeled red sandals. If her outfit could talk, it might have said, ``I'm the '90s version of a corset.'' ``It's a cultural norm,'' Griffin said. ``It's an obsession in women's sports. Women have to prove they're hetero and feminine.'' Hetero, feminine and powerless, maybe.

In her book Moving Beyond Words, Gloria Steinem addresses the issue of women and strength. She calls it ``the politics of muscle'' and has this to say: ``Women of my generation grew up believing--as many girls still do--that the most important thing about a female body is not what it does but how it looks.

The power lies not within us but in the gaze of the observer ... whether bosomy or flat, zaftig or thin, the female ideal remains weak ... society's acceptance of muscular women may be one of the most intimate, visceral measures of change.'' Silly me. I thought society was evolving. Now I'm not so sure.

According to the Irish Independent Newspaper, a French television program depicted Mauresmo as a puppet with the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger. A voice-over said: ``It's the first time in the history of French sport that a man says he is a lesbian.'' Funny?

Maybe to a nation that finds Jerry Lewis humorous. Mauresmo publicly addressed her sexuality because she didn't want to dance around the subject for the rest of her career. She also identified her live-in girlfriend, 31-year-old Sylvie Bourdon, who accompanied her to Australia.

``Mauresmo has upped the ante,'' Griffin said. ``This is revolutionary. No professional athlete ever has come out at this [early] stage in [his or her] career. She has the potential to take things forward leap years.''

Mauresmo suggested that now that she's out, maybe the world's focus can return to her tennis. I'm thinking, ``Fat chance.'' Others disagree with me.

Jeff Favorito, the vice president of communications for the Women's Tennis Association, thinks Mauresmo's tennis eventually will supersede everything else. ``It's not like [homosexuality] is an issue,'' he said. In that case, it must be the muscles. Which leaves me back where I started. That is to say, perplexed.