Beijing Olympic Games

Updated: 2008-07-09

Amelie Mauresmo (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

(BEIJING, July 9) — Amelie Mauresmo, former No 1 French tennis player, said she will relinquish her role competing for France in the women’s doubles event of the Beijing Olympics in order to prepare for the US Open.

The Beijing Olympics will be staged August 8 through the 24, while the US Open will start August 25 and end September 7.

Mauresmo suggested on her official website at http://www.ameliemauresmo.fr/en/news/ that failing to be selected by the French Tennis Federation to compete in the women’s singles competition of the Olympics was a major factor behind her withdrawal from the Games.

Mauresmo lamented that she was missing the chance to join the 2008 Olympiad, which is being hosted for the first time ever by the Chinese capital.

Currently number 33 in Women’s Tennis Association rankings, Mauresmo was for some reason selected by the French Tennis Federation to compete in the doubles competition, but not the singles, during the Beijing Games.

She grabbed a silver medal in the women’s singles tennis competition of the Athens Olympics in 2004. And she emerged as a champion at the 2006 Australian Open and the 2006 Wiimbledon tournament. Mauresmo is well known for her powerful one-handed backhand and her strong net play.

But this year has seemed inauspicious for Mauresmo – she lost in the third round of the Australian Open, failed in the second round of the French Open and stopped in the third round at Wimbledon.

Mauresmo announced on her website that she will pass up the Olympics in order to set her sights on the US Open: “It is with a lot of sadness that I take this decision because playing for my country [in] my last Olympic games meant a lot to me.”