The 21st century
France · born Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1979 · Wimbledon champion 2006 · the first French winner since Suzanne Lenglen
All playersBack to the rankings
1
Wimbledon singles title, 2006
3
Wimbledon semi-finals before the title, 2002 to 2005
81
Years between Lenglen's 1925 title and hers
25
WTA singles titles
1996
Wimbledon girls' singles champion
Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 5 July 1979, Mauresmo won the junior French Open and Wimbledon titles in 1996. Unseeded at the 1999 Australian Open, she beat Lindsay Davenport and reached the final, losing to Martina Hingis. In September 2004 she became the first French player to reach world No. 1, and she held it again for most of 2006. She won Fed Cup with France in 2003, Olympic singles silver in 2004 and the WTA Championships in 2005, then the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. She retired on 3 December 2009 with 25 singles titles. She later coached Marion Bartoli and Andy Murray, captained the French Fed Cup team, entered the Hall of Fame in 2015 and in 2021 became the first woman to direct Roland-Garros.
| Wimbledon singles | Champion 2006, beat Justine Henin 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. Semi-finals 2002, lost to Serena Williams; 2004 and 2005, lost to Lindsay Davenport |
|---|---|
| Wimbledon 2006 route | First four rounds in straight sets as top seed; quarter-final, beat Anastasia Myskina 6-1, 3-6, 6-3; semi-final, beat Maria Sharapova 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 |
| Wimbledon doubles | Finalist 2005 with Svetlana Kuznetsova, lost 2-6, 1-6 to Cara Black and Liezel Huber |
| Eastbourne | Doubles 2006 with Kuznetsova. Singles finalist 2007, lost to Henin 5-7, 7-6, 6-7 from 4-1 up in the third set |
| Junior Wimbledon | Girls' singles champion 1996, the year she also won the junior French Open |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Women's singles | |
| Eastbourne | ||
| 2006 | Women's doubles | with Svetlana Kuznetsova |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"That is why it has taken me longer than others. Things come when they have to come."
The person behind the player.
Paris 1983
She started playing at four after watching Yannick Noah win the 1983 French Open on television. Thirteen years later she won the junior titles at Roland-Garros and Wimbledon in the same summer, and in 1999, unseeded, she beat the top seed Lindsay Davenport in Melbourne on her way to a first senior major final.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameMelbourne and Wimbledon, 2006
Her first major came when Justine Henin retired from the Australian Open final with Mauresmo ahead 6-1, 2-0, and critics said she had been lucky. Six months later she beat Henin again, this time to the last point, at Wimbledon. At the trophy ceremony she said: "I hope people will stop talking about my nerves now."
Source: Tennis MajorsWimbledon 2006
After match point she knelt on the grass, and later appeared in a T-shirt that read "Big Confidence". She admitted to being a little nervous on match point, "which is probably understandable", and said: "It seems that I have finally found how to handle the nerves a bit better."
Source: The Irish TimesEastbourne 2007
A year after the Wimbledon final the two met again in the Eastbourne final. Mauresmo led 4-1 in the deciding set but lost it 7-6, and with it the match 5-7, 7-6, 6-7. It was the nearest she came to a grass singles title outside Wimbledon.
Source: WikipediaQueen's Club 2014
Darren Cahill suggested her when Murray was looking for a female coach, and their first session was a public practice at Queen's in June 2014. She was the first former WTA player in so senior a coaching role on the men's tour, and some criticism focused on her gender. "Obviously she's won Wimbledon before so it'll be interesting," Murray said.
Source: Sports IllustratedParis 2021
After coaching Marion Bartoli, Victoria Azarenka, Murray and Lucas Pouille and captaining the French Fed Cup team from 2013 to 2016, she was named director of the French Open in 2021, the first woman to run the tournament that Noah's win had first drawn her to as a child.
Source: International Tennis Hall of FameFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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