For quite a long time Amelie Mauresmo has been failing to bring her confidence back and make better results at tournaments. A series of disappointments is tempting the two-time Grand Slam champion to hang up the racquet for good.

The 28-year-old Mauresmo couldn’t play tennis for most of the 2007 season because of appendicitis and long recovery process, as well as a surgery-related injury. When she finally came back she faced big defeats, and the new tennis season didn’t bring any improvement either. Since she failed to defend her title at Wimbledon last season, Mauresmo has won nine matches. Her ranking has plummeted from No. 4 to No. 22. Read more »

Top seed Russian Anna Chakvetadze beat home favorite and former world number one Amelie Mauresmo 3-6 6-3 6-3 to reach the Open Gaz de France semifinals where she will face another Frenchwoman, Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli.

The victory is Chakvetadze’s first in four meetings against Mauresmo. The two-time Grand Slam champion Mauresmo won the Parisian tournament in 2001 and 2006 and was the runner-up in 1999, 2003 and 2005. We’re still waiting for her to start making such good results again after a disappointing season 2007 which ruined her confidence.

After the tough and more than two hours long quarterfinal, world number seven Chakvetadze is tired and said it won't be easy to recover and enter the semifinal clash against third seed Bartoli really fresh. Chakvetadze and Bartoli have met only once so far, that was in Luxembourg last year, and Bartoli won in three sets.

In the other semifinal, Hungarian Agnes Szavay and Russian Elena Dementieva will face each other. (photo via Getty Images)

In a match which could have easily gone each way, Australian Casey Dellacqua defeated seed No.18 Amelie Mauresmo of France 3-6 6-4 6-4 and set up a fourth round clash with Jelena Jankovic.

Mauresmo, the 2006 Australian Open champion, is the second seed to be defeated by home favorite Dellacqua, the first one was No.15 seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland.

Will exhausted Jelena Jankovic be an easy target for world No.78 Casey Dellacqua? Hmm, easy definitely not. As we have seen, third seed Jankovic has been advancing no matter what and I believe she’s able to continue posing threat to her opponents, at least to those outside of top 20. Jankovic is now a master of playing with very little to no energy and crossing the pain barrier is not a problem for her (oh, so sad Jankovic got herself into this desperate situation). (photo via Getty Images)

Amelie Mauresmo and Na Li have withdrawn from the Medibank International, the last major tuneup event before the Australian Open.

Mauresmo has re-injured her left thigh, while Li has a right knee injury.

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Fellow tennis blogger Diane of the Women Who Serve made a good point – we have been so busy praising Justine Henin’s fantastic year, Serena Williams' comeback, the success of the Serbian players, and Maria Sharapova’s magnificent end of the season, that we have almost completely forgotten about Amelie Mauresmo.

Of course, there is a clear reason for that – Mauresmo hasn’t lived up to the expectations this year (the sad fact that proves this is that my last three posts that mention the Frenchwoman are Mauresmo stunned early in Zurich, Mauresmo falls in Stuttgart opener, and Mauresmo upset at China Open). However, Amelie is not to blame for all this, appendicitis and a very long period of recovery, followed by an appendicitis-related adductor strain, kept her off the court for much of the season.

I’m glad Diane reminded us all that Mauresmo is still one of the world’s best players and that with appropriate training she’ll be there to challenge all the players that are now in the focus of attention. The two-time Grand Slam champion will probably have a confidence problem that could hold her back in 2008, but she should be able to overcome that and come back to the top, where she belongs.

I’m looking forward to mentioning Mauresmo in more positive contexts than it was the case in 2007. Allez!