Mauresmo's Early Visit To Madrid

MADRID, Spain - After being one of the first to qualify for the upcoming Sony Ericsson Championships, Amélie Mauresmo kept up with the early-bird theme on Wednesday with a visit to Madrid, Spain to promote the $3-million season-ending event.

Mauresmo spent some time with a variety of media throughout Wednesday morning and afternoon, including Spanish newspaper El Mundo and MARCA, the main sport paper and one of the sponsors of the event. She also did interviews with some more newspapers, sports papers and radio, and even had time for a photo shoot in front of the famous Cibeles, a fountain where soccer team Real Madrid always celebrates its biggest victories. The Frenchwoman left for home later in the afternoon.

Mauresmo and Justine Henin-Hardenne were the first players to book tickets to this year's Sony Ericsson Championships, doing so on August 21, a week before the US Open. Since then a quartet of Russians has also managed to qualify for Madrid, namely Maria Sharapova (in mid-September), Svetlana Kuznetsova (in early October) and Nadia Petrova and Elena Dementieva (just last week).

Two spots remain in the elite eight-woman Sony Ericsson Championships singles field, and there is a three-woman battle for them between Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Patty Schnyder. Hingis currently leads the three in the Race to the Sony Ericsson Championships, but is not playing this week or next, while Clijsters plays in Hasselt and Schnyder plays Linz, as well as in Hasselt.

Mauresmo has had one of the best overall years of anyone on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, in regular events and Grand Slams alike. She has captured titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, her first two career Grand Slam titles, as well as two Tier II indoor events earlier on in the season at Paris [Indoors] and Antwerp. Additional milestones are maintaining a stranglehold on the World No.1 ranking from mid-March until the present date, and becoming the fastest woman to earn $1-million in a season, achieving the feat at Antwerp and beating out Henin-Hardenne's 2004 record by a whole month.