Biography of Women's Tennis Star Amélie Mauresmo

If you're watching tennis and don't know Amélie Mauresmo, it's time you did. She is the top seed at this year's Wimbledon tennis tournament and set to take on reigning queen Venus Williams in the quarter-final round.

Amélie Simone Mauresmo was born July 5, 1979 in Saint-German-en-Laye, France. At the age of 4 she was so enthralled watching a French Open match on TV that her parents buy her a racquet and enrolled her in lessons. At age 11, her budding talent prompted an invite from the Fédération Française du Tennis, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) to join the Tennis/School program in Blois.

At 14 years old, Amélie enrolled at INSEP Vincennes, a national institute for sports and physical education. Training for a year with Gail Lovera, ex-French No.1 from Australia, Amélie acquires Lovera's topspin one-handed backhand an asset which revolutionized her personal game.

A year later, in 1994, Amélie trained at the national training centre at Roland Garros, the Centre d'Entrainement National and turns pro with the help of Patrick Simon, one of her first coaches. By 1996, she captured the Junior French Open and was named Junior World Champion by the International Tennis Federation.

In 1997, at the age of 18, Mauresmo injected her tennis game by working with a private coach, Warwick Bashford, a South African living in France. The next year she broke out at the German Open in Berlin where although ranked 65, she defeated world No. 2 Lindsay Davenport, No. 3 Jana Novotna and No. 14 Dominique Van Roost. The wins gave her the honor of being the lowest ranked player ever to defeat two of the world's top three players in a tournament. She ended that year with a ranking of No. 29 and voted the Best Newcomer of the Year 1998 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA).

Mauresmo was unseeded at the 1999 Australian Open but this didn't stop her from defeating three top seeded players and reaching the final. Although she lost to Martina Hingis in the final round that year, she had beaten the No. 1 seed Lindsay Davenport and became the second Frenchwoman to reach the Australian Open final since 1922. After defeating Davenport, an elated Mauresmo came out publicly to the international press that she was a lesbian. Her then girlfriend was on hand to celebrate Mauresmo's rising stature and the athlete attributed her success in part to a happy love life.

Other WTA players, including Martina Hingis, aimed derogatory comments at Mauresmo regarding her sexuality, an experience that Mauresmo has described as traumatic. However, she received tremendous support from the French public, her fans and her corporate sponsors. And later that year defeated Hingis on the court at an indoor event in Paris, France.

The loss at the 1999 Australian Open would mark the beginning of a period in Mauresmo's career where a Grand Slam title eluded the player. In 2003, she was the leading player in a team that captured the Fed Cup for France and she has won more Fed Cup singles matches than any other French player. Mauresmo captured a silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where she was defeated by Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne in the women's singles final. Although one of the sport's best players and ranked in the top five since September 2004, Mauresmo remained one of the few players to attain top ranking without first winning a Grand Slam.

This standing changed at the 2006 Australian Open. Mauresmo finally captured her first Grand Slam singles title by defeating both Belgian former World No. 1 players, Kim Clijsters, and Justine Henin-Hardenne in the semi-final and final respectively. Since March 2006, Mauresmo has maintained the No. 1 ranking and a fierce winning streak. Her singles record this year is an impressive 30-8 (437-173 career). She holds 22 WTA tour singles titles and now adds the elusive Grand Slam to her resume this year.

In addition to being a stellar athlete, Mauresmo is recognized for her humanitarian spirit. She was named official ambassador of Habitat for Humanity in 2004. She also received the Commitment to Community Award from the Florida Times-Union and Water's Edge Magazine in recognition of her support to Phil Collins' Little Dreams Foundation and The Curie Institute of France (for cancer research).

As Wimbledon begins this month, Mauresmo has won a tour-leading three tournaments winning 19 of 22 matches including a 16-match winning streak. Her year is on a positive run that will bring electricity to the air at the tournament in London. Whether or not she succeeds at dethroning Venus Williams from Wimbledon's reigning elite, she is sure to entertain and awe the crowds with her mean backhand.