Amelie Mauresmo’s coach Loic Courteau told the French newspaper L'Equipe that it’s not certain that Mauresmo will compete in the last Grand Slam of the year which starts on the 27th August.

World No. 6 has had disappointing results lately, and one thing is for sure — she will have fifteen days off in order to rest from the world of tennis.

“She really needs to completely recharge her batteries, to re-energize, to come back with new ambitions and goals," said Loic Courteau.

Mauresmo is already thinking about the next season: "The first date will of course be the US Open, but I must already start to think about 2008." (via Lawn Tennis News)

Nicole Vaidisova advanced to the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the first time in her career with a fantastic 7-6(6), 4-6, 6-1 victory over the defending champion Amelie Mauresmo.

Mauresmo had defeated Vaidisova twice in their previous four meetings, but note that every time their matches reach three sets Vaidisova has been the one to win.

Fourth seed Mauresmo had been exhibiting the form that led her to title last season, but today’s match against the Czech fourteenth seed was a completely different story – the French made fourteen double faults and over half of her fifty net approaches were unsuccessful.

Nicole Vaidisova will next face sixth seed Ana Ivanovic, the last month’s Roland Garros finalist, who has just defeated eleventh seed Nadia Petrova 6-1 2-6 6-4. (via On the Baseline)

Saturday we will watch a match of two superb players, seeds No. 1 and No. 2. Justine Henin – top-ranked player in the world and the defending champion at the Eastbourne International grasscourt tournament; Amelie Mauresmo — ranked fourth in the world and the 2006 Wimbledon champion.

Justine Henin of Belgium had a 59-minute-long semifinal match against No. 8 seed Marion Bartoli, seeing off her opponent 6-1 6-3 to reach the final.

If the Belgian wins the 2007 Eastbourne International she will be the first woman since Chanda Rubin in 2002 and 2003 to lift this trophy in successive years. Read more »

The first known semifinalist of the Eastbourne International grass-court tournament was the defending champion Justine Henin, who crushed fifth-seeded Nicole Vaidisova 6-2 6-2.

I had expected much more from this match. Vaidisova serves well, so I thought the match would be much more undecided, but her serve had let her down, and she had no other weapons to use against the Belgian top seed. Within the first 20 minutes Vaidisova was 5-0 down, having held only one game point.

In the second quarterfinal match eight-seeded Marion Bartoli defeated fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva 6-1 6-0. This is Bartoli’s second consecutive win over the Russian, the previous one having been in this month’s Roland Garros. Furthermore, the Frenchwoman is now even with Dementieva on grass, 1-1.

FIRST SEMIFINAL: Henin vs. Bartoli >> So far, they’ve played only once, and that was four years ago. Henin defeated Bartoli on the hard-courts of Toronto. But in this case, the stats are not necessary; it’s clear who the favorite in this match is. Read more »

Photographers found plenty of room to park Amelie Mauresmo’s dressing trailer during a shoot in London on Wednesday.

The 2006 Wimbledon Champion launched a new line of Reebok clothing on top of a multi-storey car park near Wembley Stadium in North London, where she hit balls off to an opponent on an opposite roof made up as another mock-tennis court. Read more »

France’s Amelie Mauresmo, who won many titles in her career, including two Grand Slams, has never gone beyond the quarter-finals at Roland Garros. Even though she was in front of the home crowd, Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic beat her 6-3 7-6 (7-3) in the third round.

After this victory, Safarova leads in their head-to-heads 2-0. The first time she ousted Mauresmo, the former world number one and currently the world No. 4, was in the fourth round of the 2007 Australian Open.

"Beating her in Australia was nice already but this is fantastic," Safarova said. "I was 3-0 down but I never gave up and I won in straight sets. That's great." (via Reuters)

World No. 5 has a lot of achievements to be proud of – two Grand Slam titles, 25 WTA Tour events, a Fed Cup, and four years in the top five. Still, at her home Grand Slam, she has reached only two quarter-finals — in 2003 and 2004. For many players, that would be a great success, but Mauresmo can't really be satisfied.

It seems that she has some kind of mental block at her home tournament. Amelie admitted that stress played a role in her pour results, especially when she lost to world No. 54 Jana Kandarr of Germany in the first round of the 2001 French Open. After this defeat, Amelie won as much as four consecutive tournaments!

Last year, after losing to Vaidisova, the French No. 1 said: "I think people should start looking for me at other tournaments."

We should never write Amelie off, but even her biggest fans are not so sure she can win. However, this year she has much less pressure on her shoulders, since the French fans have gradually stopped believing she can win the clay-court Grand Slam. "Maybe she can relax a little bit and play her best tennis," analyst Mary Joe Fernandez said. (via: Roland Garros, ESPN)

Samantha Stosur, ranked 29th in the world, caused the first major upset at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, defeating top-seeded Amelie Mauresmo in a nail-biting match that lasted almost three hours.

They played shot for shot, the result 75 67(4) 76(7) illustrates best how tight the match was. Both of them were close to victory several times. The Australian saved two match points. The French, later on, managed to save one match point, but lost the second one.

On paper, Mauremo was a heavy favorite — she's a former world No. 1 who grew up on clay. On the other hand, Stosur admits that clay isn't her preferred surface.

This is Samantha's first win over Amelie in their six meetings. It seems that Mauresmo still needs to get into rhythm after her two-month break caused by an appendix surgery. "I have nothing much to say but that I'm just disappointed, and obviously I guess the lack of matches showed a little bit at that moment," she said.

Both of them played well, but the Australian seemed to be emotionally stronger this time. I have to say that Stosur fascinated me with her mental stamina throughout the match. (sources: TennisX, BBC Sport)

Amelie Mauresmo had to have her appendix removed in mid-April. She's recovered a great deal, but still, she's not ready enough to compete in J&S Cup, which takes place in Warsaw next week.

The French number 1 decided to make a comeback in Berlin, at Qatar Telecom German Open, a $1,340,000 tournament which starts on May 7. After Berlin, Mauresmo will play in Rome, and after Rome, she'll have intensive training to prepare for the second Grand Slam of the year, Roland Garros.

(via Amelie Mauresmo's official website)

Only three women from the top ten will take part in the first round of the Fed Cup — Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Anna Chakvetadze; they are all representatives of Russia.

Why won't the other highly ranked players compete in the Fed Cup?

• Top-ranked Justine Henin of Belgium wants to have enough time to prepare for the clay-season, as well as to treat her breathing problems. Her next tournament will be Warsaw, starting April 30.
• Maria Sharapova, Russia's highest-ranked player, won't make her Fed Cup debut because of injured shoulder and hamstring.
• France's Amelie Mauresmo is recovering from her appendectomy.
• Kim Clijsters, another Belgian top player, decided to skip the Fed Cup because of her busy schedule.
• Countries of Martina Hingis (Switzerland), Nicole Vaidisova (the Czech Republic) and Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) are not in the World Group.