2006
A win for all of us?
For most of you, January 28th probably wasn’t a very significant day, but on that day, a historical moment occured for French pro tennis player Amelie Mauresmo — she won her first career Grand Slam single title at the Australian Open. (For the tennis/sport illiterate, a Grand Slam title is the top achievement you can make in the pro-tennis world, and there are 4 each year: Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open and US Open.) Mauresmo first made her name in the headlines 7 years ago in the 1999 Australian Open when she entered her first Grand Slam final as an unseeded player.
But the story then went a little differently.
After playing then World No.1 Lindsay Davenport in the semi-final (and winning), Mauresmo publicly came out as a lesbian under the media spot-light. The public response was overall positive: she didn’t lose her sponsors, and she had support from her countrymen. But nonetheless, she got a few comments here and there from other athletes that made her feel uncomfortable for a little while. The most controversial of all came from World No.2 player Martina Hingis, who played and defeated Mauresmo in the final. Hingis made a comment about how Mauresmo was “half a man”, and that set off the icy relations between the two since then. After the 1999 Australian Open, Mauresmo’s sexuality continued to be a topic of discussion on and off the courts for the next while.
Fast forward 7 years.
Going into the Australian Open 2006, Mauresmo was seeded at No.3, and was ranked No.3 in the world. The news surrounding her going into the Open was about whether she will finally win a Grand Slam title. In the current pool of players, she remained the only player who had managed to climbed the rankings to the top, but failed to capture a Grand Slam single title in her career. In fact, she had failed to even get into a Grand Slam final game since the 1999 Australian Open. There was talk about whether she had it in her to win, there was talk about what she had to do, what was lacking, what it would take.
Finally, she proved herself to be worthy of the title. Unfortunately two of her opponents retired from the games (Kim Clijsters in the semi-final and Justine Henin-Hardenne in the final), and the retirement of Henin-Hardenne made her first career Grand Slam win a little anti-climatic. But she won, and everyone agreed that she deserved it, whether she got to finish the game or not. And I was happy for her, because she had persisted over the last 7 years. I was also happy because there was little, I’d even say nothing in the media leading up to the Open and throughout the tournament about the fact that she’s a lesbian. And that is the way it should be. She’s just a tennis player who works hard and tries to win, like any other pro-tennis players. That her partner happens to be another woman has little to do with it, and should stay outside of her professional career. I’m glad that the media had ceased to be obsessed with it, and to me it’s a sign that people think it’s really nothing to fret over, and I’d consider it a win for all of us.
