The ex-wife of former world No.1 Amelie Mauresmo has been jailed for four months after being found guilty of harassing the tennis star. Marie-Benedicte Hurel, 60, had denied the allegations during the trial, with her legal team given 10 days to activate an appeal.
Mauresmo, now the director of the Roland Garros venue that hosts the French Open, filed a complaint against her ex-partner in June, according to media outlet Sud Ouest. That’s after previously being quoted as saying she had been “going through hell” since filing for divorce in 2023.
Mauresmo, who won both Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2006, had alleged she had been subjected to blackmail and harassment, which included receiving a string of phone messages. The 44-year-old didn’t attend court in Bayonne for the decision.
Hurel was present to receive her sentence. She was cleared of harassment charges against a second woman, Mauresemo’s new partner, after lawyer Thierry Sagardoytho previously cited the pair having “a lively discussion” as causing an issue. According to Via Le Parisien, he said: “The contested SMS messages are not at all harassment, but a simple discussion on day-to-day management. [There is an] instrumentalization of an artificial complaint in the perspective of divorce.”
Hurel is now banned from making contact with Mauresmo, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, for two years. The former star herself was prescribed a total incapacity for work (ITT) of ten days as a result of the ordeal.
Mauresmo exploded onto the scene in her sport in 1999, reaching the Australian Open final despite being unseeded. There, she was beaten by Martina Hingis, but was hailed as just the third Frenchwoman to reach any Grand Slam final in the open era.
She would later publicly come out as gay, a notion she perceived to be behind her on-court success. But despite rising to the top of the rankings in September 2004, her double Slam success in Australia and England in 2006 signified her only major event wins.
And the final in Melbourne Park that year proved anti-climatic when, with Mauresmo leading Justine Henin 6-1 2-0, her Belgian opponent retired with illness. A similar occurrence had happened in the semi-final, with Kim Clijsters forfeiting the match with an ankle injury.
But months later the top seed came from a set down to defeat Henin in the final at SW19. It made Mauresmo the first Frenchwoman to win Wimbledon since Suzanne Lenglen in 1925.
