Pierce Just Like At Home

07 February 2005 - Pierre-Olivier BOUCHE
After a beginning of season relatively quiet, Mary Pierce returns to Paris full of ambitions. Opposed to Spanish Anabel Medina Garrigues in the first round, the runner-up of the 2004 edition of the tournament hopes to shine once again in Paris.

Mary Pierce likes Paris and the Open Gaz de France. Runner-up in 2004 after being defeated by Kim Clijsters and by Steffi Graf in 1995, the French player imposed herself in Porte Saint-Cloud in 1998. Thus, it is with a big smile that she returns to a tournament where she has always achieved good performances. Liberated from a series of physical setbacks that spoiled the end of her 2004 season (injury at right shoulder), Pierce has come to kick off her 2005 campaign. After her withdrawal in Sydney, she was severely defeated in the first round of the Australian Open and disqualified by Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro (6-2, 6-2). With only one match played in 2005, the Frenchwoman is hungry for more.

For her first tournament match, Mary Pierce will be opposed once again to Anabel Medina Garrigues. She keeps excellent memories of the Spanish player; the two of them played against each other at the Olympic tournament in Athens. Pierce was brilliant: after eliminating Medina Garrigues in two sets (6-3, 7-5), she beat Venus Williams. “The beginning of a positive dynamic” are the words what come to her mind when the name of the Spanish player is evoked.

The public sure hopes that her first appearance in the tournament will be marked by success before the second round, much more difficult, begins. Also, Amélie Mauresmo is eagerly waiting for her Fed Cup partner. “It would be a great match for the public,” said Pierce on Sunday. But first things first, she must focus on the Spanish player, World n°41, who prevailed in 2002 in Hobart.