The defending champion makes a surreal cameo

WIMBLEDON, England -- So I arrived on the grounds Friday morning and, in the wake of last night's car bomb scare in downtown London, the security was tighter than Tim Henman in a fifth set. (Cheap shot. Sorry.)

As I prepared to stand on line for the Gate 16 bag check, an athletic-looking woman on a blue mountain bike pulled up. Amélie Mauresmo got off and waited in line. Good form prevented me from asking why she wasn't wearing a helmet.

"You can't come in here with that bike, missus," admonished a security guard, a Joe Strummer look-alike, sound-alike. Mauresmo calmly explained to the gendarme that she had always ridden her bike through the Wimbledon grounds without a problem.

"I'm just cutting through," she said.

"Well, you have to go around!" the guard snapped.

Mauresmo rolled her eyes and then did something remarkable. She turned and walked away. No fit of pique. No "do-you-know-who-I-am?" business. No gentle suggestion that perhaps the rules could be relaxed for the defending Wimbledon Ladies champion. No "get me your supervisor" business. (We recalled the story of Samantha Stevenson -- remember her? -- stopped by Russian security and demanding to speak with Vladimir Putin.)

No, Mauresmo just pedaled off, perhaps figuring her psychic energies would be more usefully devoted to her next match. Merde happens, she implied.

This was just another reminder that, when players are on the court or in press conferences they may offer glimpses into their personalities. Or they may not. Today's media-trained, media-savvy athletes reveal as much of themselves as they please in these controlled settings. Their agents and handlers would prefer they only spoke when they had a product to pitch or a charity event to plug.

Yet in unremarkable, unscripted, everyday moments, you can learn plenty about an athlete's disposition. Incidentally, after Mauresmo was out of sight, the guard complained that "some lady tried to ride a bike through here." His superior popped up, "That would be OK. Just check the seat next time and let her in."

Check it out

Just Crusing through

Amelie won her third round match today at Wimbeldon after a 2 hour rain delay she wrapped up her match in just 57 mins with a 6-1 ,6-2 win over mara santagelo she had 11 Aces and only 9 UE and 5 DF she is through to the second week at wimbeldon and has some time to rest before her next match .

practice session

Switzerland's Roger Federer and France's Amelie Mauresmo during a practice session at The All England Lawn Tennis during the Wimbledon Championships in London, UK on June 28, 2007


France's Amelie Mauresmo and Spain's Rafael Nadal during a practice session at The All England Lawn Tennis during the Wimbledon Championships in London, UK on June 28, 2007.






France's Amelie Mauresmo and her coach during a practice session at The All England Lawn Tennis during the Wimbledon Championships in London, UK on June 28, 2007.

Moves On

Amelie moved on to the 3rd round at wimbeldon with a win today vs Yvonne Meusburger taking the match in two sets 6-1, 6-3 next up is Mara Santangelo ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO

Match Pics(update)

Amelie Won

Amelie Won her first round match at wimbeldon today with a very easy first set at 6-1 the second set she would win 6-3 to win the match in one hour three minutes. keep it up champ next up either razzano or meusburger.

1st match

Amelie Will Play her 1st match tomorrow at Wimbeldon vs Jamea Jackson of the US so wish much luck for her to move on to the second round and No rain till she has played
Cmon Champ

Only Laughing - Andy Sisco

Cute

A great Fight

A great Fight but just was not enough today but she played very well just some UE she has to work on but still the way she played great now she will go to wimbeldon with her head held high and to me she looks to be about 95% back to 100% better luck next year the score 7-5 6-7 7-6 ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO

in the finals

Amelie Played her OF match Semi Finals match today vs Nadia Petrova taking the first set 6-4 but injury made Nadia Pertrova pull out of the match giving Amelie the win she will Face Justine in the finals tomorrow ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO WIN

In the Semis

Amelie won her QF match today over Shahar Peer 6-3, 6-4 with beautiful Backhand shots and a lot of Aces keep it up Champ ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO next up is Nadia Petrova PayBack Time.

First Pics

Amelie moves on

Amelie subdued her opponent in her First match of the tournament.

Amelie seems to have gotten in the groove and rhythm already on this surface. From the first points,Amelie served really well with an excellent first serve percentage and stringing 4 aces in a row.Tomorrow Amelie will face S.Peer the Israeli player.

A Great Win

Amélie def. Mara Santangelo 6:2 6:3 in 61 mins playing a great game with 10 aces to great the win her grass game is beautiful ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO
stats of the match: Mara - Amelie

1st serve%: 57% - 69%
aces: 0 - 10
DFs: 6 - 3
winners: 16 - 28
UEs: 18 - 17
BPs: 0/0 - 3/7
total points: 40 - 59
match duration: 61 minutes

First Match

Amelie will play her first match today vs Mara SANTANGELO of ITALY ALLEZ AMELIE , GO MOMO WIN Champ

Eastbourne Press pt 2

Eastbourne Press

Direction Eastbourne

After a short stop by Wimbledon,Amelie left for Eastbourne where she'll start the tournament on Wednesday

Everything is going well for Amelie in terms of her preparations.She is working every day with a team made of Xavier her physical trainer,along with Michel and Loic. The focus has been specifically on the physical preparation within the frameworks of the tennis practices.Arriving in Eastbourne today,Amelie will play the Second round in the tournament on Wednesday.

Mauresmo Inspired By Magic Of Wimbledon

Reigning champion Amelie Mauresmo is ready to plug into the All England Club magic once again.

Twelve months after enchanting Wimbledon's crowds with her flamboyant brilliance, reigning champion Amelie Mauresmo is ready to plug into the All England Club magic once again.
The 27-year-old Frenchwoman was a popular winner last year when she beat Justine Henin to add the Wimbledon crown to the Australian Open title she won earlier in the year when the same opponent retired in the final.

In a sport full of baseline sluggers, Wimbledon crowds embrace style and artistry and Mauresmo fits the bill perfectly with her rapier groundstrokes and graceful movement. She even practises the dying art of serve and volley.

"I definitely feel at ease here," world number four Mauresmo told Reuters on Sunday in an interview arranged by Sony Ericsson ahead of the Eastbourne warm-up event.

"When I walked into Wimbledon again I felt great, the setting, the history and tradition, it lifts my spirit.

"Last year I felt terrible going into the championships and not very positive about my game but when I arrived the tournament inspired me. I guess you could say it's the magic of the place."

Her Wimbledon title last year cemented her name among the game's greats and silenced those who said she had only won the Australian Open by default when Henin quit.

"It was funny last year. People were still doubting, still saying 'can she win a match point?' after Australia, but I knew that I could," she said.

Her victory at the Tour Championships in Los Angeles in 2005 had helped convince her of that, she added.

BIG WEAPON

Apart from winning a diamond racket in Antwerp, this year has been a more difficult one for the former world number one.

She surrendered her Australian Open crown, missed March and April with acute appendicitis and suffered an early French Open defeat after being hampered by a thigh injury.

However, she is relishing the chance to get back into action on her favourite surface.

"I've been proud for a year to be defending champion and it will be even more emotional this time," she told reporters last week after arriving in the country.

"Wimbledon is something I can't really explain, it's special.

"I'm confident that my game can come really quickly on the grass -- and it will have to because I've not had a lot of tennis behind me.

"But there are not many players play like me on the grass so I think it can be a big weapon. The first matches are going to be very important to get things going. Hopefully it will come right at the same time."

The one cloud on the horizon is the small thigh muscle tear that has disrupted her preparation. She hit some balls on a grass court at the British Embassy in Paris last week, and will test her fitness at Eastbourne.

"We took it slowly because it could have gotten worse if we rushed, but I never had any fear that I would miss Wimbledon," she said.

"It would probably mean more to win this season because last year I had already won the Australian Open, it would be a great achievement."

Mauresmo has promised herself another visit to her favourite Geneva wine store if she does do it again.

"Every time I went into the shop I kept looking at a bottle of '21', very old. When I won Wimbledon I ran in there and just bought it," she said. "If I win again I'l find another one for sure."

http://www.javno.com/en/sports/clanak.php?id=54286

Mauresmo may be ring-rusty but boasts she has the weapon to win Wimbledon again

David Ornstein
Monday June 18, 2007

If Amélie Mauresmo had her way the entire women's tour would be played on grass, preferably at the All England Club. But having spent the past 11 months treading every surface apart from the green stuff, and with Wimbledon starting a week today, her decision to enter a tournament that has a knack of derailing her preparations for the season's third grand slam must be questioned.
An almost masochistic smile plays on the 27-year-old's face, though, when she confirms her fitness for the International Women's Open in Eastbourne this week, the last stop before SW19 and an event in which she has lasted a total of two days in as many years.

Few of the world's top players would consider drawing inspiration from being knocked out of any competition but Mauresmo's opening-match defeats in Sussex - 6-4, 6-4 to Vera Douchevina two years ago and 6-3, 2-6, 3-6 to Nathalie Dechy last year - have had a galvanising effect. In 2005 she regrouped to go through Wimbledon without losing a set until she was pipped for a place in the final by Lindsay Davenport, and last year she lifted the title with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Justine Henin.
Since then she has won only one tournament - the Antwerp Open on carpet - and her build-up has again been disrupted, by an operation for appendicitis, which sidelined her for the best part of two months, and by a 1¼in tear in her right thigh sustained during her third round defeat in the French Open.

Since her surgery on March 13 the world No4 has been limited to four tournaments. Yet she remains confident of retaining the Wimbledon title. "Last year before Wimbledon I was not very positive about my game, about the way I was feeling and about the way I was mentally on the court," she said. "This year I'm happy to be back here but with not as much tennis behind me - two different conditions but some questions still about how I feel and about how I can do. But the experience has to show at some point and hopefully it will be next week."

Mauresmo was speaking within hours of landing in Britain. Whereas many would head straight for their hotel - or in her case the house she rents each year - to rest, the French player could not hide her excitement at being back. "Every time I enter the [Wimbledon] area it's really something different, something special that I cannot really explain," she said. "I've been proud for a year to have been the defending champion of Wimbledon and I guess it's going to be even more emotional for me when I step on to a court to practise at Wimbledon for the first time. I'm really looking forward to going back - happy, proud and confi dent being back on the grass."

Mauresmo's affection for grass courts dates back to 1996 when, as a promising teenager with thick glasses and a fine one-handed backhand, she won junior Wimbledon. She has since reached three semi-finals but it was not until last year's triumph that the effectiveness of her powerful serve-volley game really came to fruition.

"The first time I step on a grass court is always very special and I enjoy it," she said. "It requires different weapons in terms of physical training but I like it, it suits me pretty well. Considering that not a lot of players play like me on grass I think I have a big weapon."

One weapon many still refuse to include in Mauresmo's armoury is mental strength. The fact that she has fallen in the semi-finals at five slams, with her maiden victory in the Australian Open last year secured by Henin's early retirement because of a bout of gastroenteritis, hardly works in her defence.

But Wimbledon was a chance to prove people wrong. "I said, 'Don't talk about my nerves any more,'" she joked, repeating a line she came out with in her press conference after conquering Wimbledon. "The win last year probably showed the media and the crowd in general that I was able to win the big ones and go to the end. Even though I was already convinced about that, I think I still had to prove it to people. Was it also important to show my opponents? Looking back at it, probably yes."

Despite pointing out that the grass is playing slower each year, to the detriment of hard hitters such as Venus and Serena Williams, Mauresmo thinks the American pair, "especially Serena", will pose the biggest threat to her crown. "We saw how strong she was in Australia and in Miami," she said. "When she is playing well and with confidence she is always a big threat, as well as Venus. With these two guys you never really know what to expect. We've also seen Jelena Jankovic playing really, really well for almost a year now; she has stepped up to another level."

Mauresmo denied that winning Wimbledon had altered her life, but added that her "bank balance has changed a little bit" and the incentive to succeed again this year is greater than ever before. For the first time the women's champion will earn the same prize money as the men's, £700,000, which for the women is a 12% increase on £625,000 last year.

"I always thought it was a matter of time before all the grand slams would make that step," she said. "It's really a reflection of how society should be and the fact that women and men are paid the same. We are always going to find some people who say, 'Yes, but the men play five sets,' but we work and practise every day as hard as any other player, whether it's a man or a woman." Mauresmo will hope her lack of practice before this Wimbledon does not prevent her from achieving such parity.

A year to forget

2006:

Aug New Haven, US quarter-final

Sept US Open semi-final, Beijing final

Oct Moscow quarter-final, Zurich quarter-final

Nov Tour Championships final

2007:

Jan Sydney quarter-final, Australian Open R16

Feb Paris semi-final, Antwerp winner, Dubai final

May Berlin R16, Italian Open R32, Strasbourg final

June French Open R32

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/wimbledo...105507,00.html

Amelie Mauresmo Sexy Lady