Amelie Mauresmo made it personal, the "half a man" jibe rankled and she wanted revenge not a retraction. Preferably in the sweaty, claustrophobic confines of Court Central at Roland Garros, where retribution would be public and highly cherished on several levels. She professed to be "hugely motivated" for her clash with Martina Hingis.
Perhaps it was the emotional baggage that cluttered her mind or simply the brilliance of her young Swiss opponent but Mauresmo crumpled, self-destructed spectacularly to lose 3-6 3-6 in yesterday's second-round French Open clash.
The 19-year-old from Laye in France tossed away points like confetti; Hingis appropriately clad in white. Mauresmo was determined to make a point, Hingis superbly focused on winning the match as she later confessed: "It was very tactical.
"There were mental things to cope with. It came down to how we both dealt with the crowd and the pressure. I have that little bit more experience." When pressed upon the relationship between the two players, Hingis was forthright: "We don't love each other that's for sure. It's a professional relationship, we are both good players and therefore we will have to play each other often.
"We are not best friends on tour, she has hers and I have mine. The match was easier than I thought it was going to be. We were both nervous but I thought I handled it better, that is after about the fifth game. Before that I was missing by five feet and my serve was awful."
Did you have fun? "Certainly not in the warm-up, the crowd was like going, `Allez. . . Boo, allez. . . boo. So I knew what it was going to be like from the start."
Mauresmo had no problem singling out the pivotal moment in the match: "3-2, 30-0 on my serve and I missed a volley. Suddenly we were through the first set and although I had a couple of chances at the beginning of the second, once the opportunities were lost they were lost for good. I had some good moments, did quite a good job but need to be more consistent in my game."
The French woman was adamant that the pressure of expectation was not a factor. "No, I don't think so, I thought I handled it well." But the $64,000 dollar question: "What are the feelings between you?" saw Mauresmo admitting: "It stays the same."
Mauresmo sought to obliterate her opponent, the sheer power of her ground strokes fuelled by adrenaline but sadly not great intelligence. The French woman needed little provocation to flail at the ball as if to prove her physical superiority and while it brought her the occasional spectacular winner, it provided her opponent with a host of cheap points.
Hingis maintained depth to her ground strokes, mixing flat, topspin and slice to clever effect and then waited for her opponent to lose patience.
Mauresmo's shot selection was frequently flawed to the point of being just plain stupid, an assertion supported by statistics. The French woman made a whopping 51 unforced errors to her opponent's 26. The vociferous Parisian crowd ceased to be a factor after eight games: sensing the inevitable they generously acknowledged the Swiss woman's excellence.
The first four games went with serve, the fifth would be the only highlight of the set for Mauresmo. She would spurn six break points before finally succeeding at the seventh opportunity. Unfortunately she simply handed back the initiative, making two forehand errors, one backhand and netting a volley at break point to lose her serve.
Hingis held comfortably and despite losing the first point, rattled off the next four with the minimum discomfort, Mauresmo serving two double faults and hammering two forehands closer to the hoarding than the baseline. Hingis duly served out for the set and when she broke in the first and third games of the second to lead 3-0 it looked as if she would prevail in a canter.
To her credit, Mauresmo toned down her impetuosity to break in the fourth game. Games went with serve before Hingis squeaked home on her fourth game point - even champions can get a little tight at times - to take a 5-3 lead and promptly broke her opponent to close out of the match. The handshake was perfunctory but the broad grin on the face of Hingis obviated the need for words.
