"Half a man" in the Melbourne final
Unseeded, 19 and openly lesbian: Amélie Mauresmo storms into the 1999 final and has to endure taunts from Hingis.
On 30 January 1999, a young woman whom hardly anyone had expected stood in the final of the Australian Open in Melbourne. Amélie Mauresmo was 19, unseeded and until then little known outside France. During those days, though, the whole tennis world was talking about her, and not just because of her powerful backhand.
In the first week of the tournament, Mauresmo had done something hardly anyone on the women's tour had dared since Martina Navratilova. She spoke openly about being lesbian and introduced her girlfriend to the media. Sylvie Bourdon, 31, sat in her box from then on, cheering her on loudly. She was finally at peace with herself, Mauresmo said, and it showed in her tennis too.
Then came the semi-final against world number one Lindsay Davenport. Mauresmo won, and Davenport said afterwards that she had felt as if she were playing against a man. Later she apologised. The Swiss player Martina Hingis went even further. In an interview in German, she is said to have described her opponent in the final as being there with her girlfriend and as half a man. Hingis disputed the wording, and no real apology followed. The Melbourne tabloids pounced on the story.
Hingis won the final comfortably, 6-2, 6-3. It was her third consecutive title in Melbourne. But the headlines belonged to the loser. Despite all the fuss, she stressed how important it was to her not to have to hide who she loved any more.
Mauresmo was not deterred. A few years later she rose to world number one and in 2006 won the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Her appearance in 1999 is still regarded as a milestone for the visibility of lesbian women in elite sport.