Pat Cash hopes that Amelie Mauresmo can spark a career comeback rather than calling it quits, the Australian says from this week's Dubai Tennis Championships in his exclusive Eurosport blog.

The disappointment today is that Maria Sharapova had to pull out of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Of course she's a red-hot player coming off of a fantastic Australian Open. Unfortunately she's had a bit of an illness and has had to pull out.

That's good news of course for fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, whose half of the draw that she was in. Of course Sharapova being the fifth seed would have really scared Kuznetsova, and that gives Kuznetsova a bit of a break.

That also gives a break to Amelie Maursemo, who has had a bit of a bad year last season with injuries and everything. Her ranking has dropped out of the seedings all together, so perhaps that's given Mauresmo a chance to get back into the tournament.

She's a beautiful player and a fantastic athlete, though. We're talking only 18 months ago that she pulled off the Wimbledon title. She's certainly had her injuries and her bad run, but unfortunately it's a thing that so many athletes have to do to force their way through tough times.

It's very tough and they're very competitive out there and sometimes you just need a lucky break and to get through a match or two and give you a little confidence.

Mauresmo has hinted that she may not be around for very long and that's certainly her option to do whatever, she's had a great career, but it would be a pity because I think she certainly has the potential to do even greater things.

But it's all in the brain. Tennis is such a mental sport, you have to come up week-after-week. It's not just one tournament a year, or four tournaments a year in the Grand Slams. There's tournaments all of the time to build confidence on and build your ranking up.

So it's a year-long thing, and unless you can keep it up for a whole year, you're going to struggle and your ranking is going to struggle as well.

If Mauresmo doesn't really love it, though, if she's getting tired, then maybe it's an option for her to take a year off at least.

As for the big second-round match, the third seed Ana Ivanovic is playing Nicole Vaidisova. Both girls are big powerful hitters.

Vaidisova certainly looked like she was going to conquer the world at the start of last year. She had a relatively good year, but certainly didn't break through like some people said she might.

This could certainly be a good opportunity for her to get past Ivanovic, though Ivanovic's form recently has been exceptionally good and she just seems to improve all of the time

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