martina hingis

On November 29, 2005, after several surgeries and long recuperations, the 25-year-old Hingis announced that she would return to the WTA tour, starting her professional comeback at a low-key tournament in Gold Coast, Australia on January 2006. Nine months into her comeback, Hingis has climbed to No. 8 in the world rankings, won two titles (at the Tier I tournament in Rome and the Tier III tournament in Kolkata, India), and was the runner-up in two tournaments (Tier I events in Tokyo and Montreal).

She is currently dating fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek.[1]

Childhood and early career

Hingis was born to two accomplished tennis players: a Czech mother, Melanie Molitorová, and a Slovak father, Karol Hingis. Molitorová once ranked No. 10 among women in Czechoslovakia. Her father is a tennis trainer in Košice. They named their daughter 'Martina' (originally Martina Hingisová - Molitorová) after Martina Navrátilová. Hingis' parents divorced when she was a young girl. She moved with her mother to Moravia for a short period, then to Switzerland.

Hingis began hitting tennis balls when she was two years old and entered her first tournament at age four. In 1993, 12-year-old Hingis became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam junior title: the girls' singles at the French Open. In 1994, she retained her French Open junior title, won the girls' singles title at Wimbledon, and was ranked the World No. 1 junior player.

She made her professional debut in October 1994, two weeks after her 14th birthday. In 1995, she became the youngest player to win a match at a Grand Slam tournament when she advanced to the second round of the Australian Open.

Hingis was twice rated among FHM magazine's 100 sexiest women, and her championship doubles partnership with tennis' glamour girl Anna Kournikova (two Grand Slam championships) in the late 1990s and early-2000s attracted a great deal of attention. Jestingly, they announced that they were "The Spice Girls of Tennis."

Grand Slam success

In 1996, Hingis became the youngest Wimbledon champion when she teamed with Helena Suková to win the women's doubles title at age 15 years and 9 months. She also won her first professional singles title that year at Filderstadt, Germany. She reached the singles quarterfinals at the 1996 Australian Open and the singles semifinals of the 1996 U.S. Open. Following her win at Filderstadt, Hingis defeated the reigning Australian Open champion and co-top ranked (with Steffi Graf) Monica Seles 6-2, 6-0 in the final at Oakland. Hingis then lost to Graf 6-4, 4-6, 6-0, 4-6, 6-0 at the year-end WTA Tour Championships.

In January 1997, Hingis became the youngest Grand Slam singles winner in the 20th century by winning the Australian Open at age 16 years and 3 months. In March, she became the youngest ever player to attain the World No. 1 ranking. And in July, she became the youngest singles champion at Wimbledon since Lottie Dod in 1887. She won the U.S. Open title over another up-and-coming player, Venus Williams, in the final. The only Grand Slam singles title she failed to win that year was the French Open, where she lost in the final to Iva Majoli.

In 1998, Hingis won all four of the Grand Slam women's doubles titles (the Australian Open with Mirjana Lucic, and the other three events with Jana Novotná), and she became only the third woman to simultaneously hold the No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles. She also retained her Australian Open singles title by beating Conchita Martínez in straight sets in the final. Hingis, however, lost in the final of the U.S. Open to Lindsay Davenport. Davenport ended an 80-week stretch Hingis had enjoyed as the No. 1 singles player in October 1998, but Hingis finished the year by beating Davenport in the final of the WTA Tour Championships.

1999 saw Hingis win her third successive Australian Open singles crown as well as the doubles title (with teammate Anna Kournikova). She then reached the French Open final and was three points away from victory in the second set against Steffi Graf, but ended up losing 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. During the match, Hingis had infuriated an already partisan crowd (the reason had been Hingis statements before the match - see under Controversy) by arguing with the umpire over several line calls (crossing the net in one instance), taking a bathroom break early in the final set, and twice delivering a rare underhand serve on match point. In tears after the match, Hingis was comforted by her mother as she returned to the court for the trophy ceremony. After a shock first-round 6-2, 6-0 loss to Jelena Dokic at Wimbledon, Hingis bounced back to reach her third consecutive U.S. Open final, where she lost to Serena Williams. Hingis won a total of seven singles titles that year and reclaimed the No. 1 singles ranking. She also reached the finals of the WTA Tour Championships, but lost 6-4, 6-2 to Davenport.

In 2000, Hingis and Mary Pierce were runners-up in the Australian Open women's doubles tournament.

Injuries and hiatus from tennis

Hingis' three-year hold on the Australian Open singles title came to an end in 2000 when she lost in the final to Lindsay Davenport 6-1, 7-5. Althhough she did not win a Grand Slam singles tournament that year, she kept the year end No. 1 ranking because of nine tournament championships, including the WTA Tour Championships.

Hingis reached her fifth consecutive Australian Open final in 2001, where she lost to Jennifer Capriati 6-4, 6-3. She briefly ended her coaching relationships with her mother Melanie early in the year but had a change of heart two months later just before the French Open. Hingis underwent surgery on her right ankle in October 2001.

Coming back from injury, Hingis won the Australian Open doubles final at the start of 2002 (again teaming with Kournikova) and reached a sixth straight Australian Open final in singles, again facing Capriati. Hingis led by a set and 4-0 and had a few match points but lost 4-6, 7-6, 6-2. In May 2002, she needed another ankle ligament operation, this time on her left ankle. After that, she continued to struggle with injuries and was not able to recapture her best form.

In 2003, at the age of 22, Hingis announced her retirement from tennis. In several interviews, she indicated she was attending an advanced English course at AKAD in Zürich to broaden her career opportunities.

During this segment of her tennis career, Hingis won 40 singles titles and 36 doubles events. She held the World No. 1 singles ranking for a total of 209 weeks. In 2005, TENNIS Magazine put her in 22nd place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.

In February 2005, Hingis made an unsuccessful return to competition at an event in Pattaya, Thailand, where she lost to Germany's Marlene Weingartner in the first round. After the loss, she claimed that she had no further plans for a comeback.

Return to the game

Hingis resurfaced in July 2005, playing singles, doubles, and mixed doubles in World Team Tennis and notching up singles victories over two top 100 players. She also shut out Martina Navrátilová in singles on July 7th. With these promising results behind her, Hingis announced on November 29 her return to the WTA Tour in 2006.

Her Grand Slam comeback debut was at the 2006 Australian Open, where she reached the quarterfinals before losing to Kim Clijsters, the second seed. However, Hingis won the mixed doubles title with Mahesh Bhupathi of India. This was her first career Grand Slam mixed doubles title and fifteenth overall (5 singles, 9 women's doubles, 1 mixed doubles).

On May 19, 2006, Hingis posted her 500th career singles match victory in the quarterfinals of the Tier I Italian Open in Rome, beating top 20 player Flavia Pennetta, and two days later won the tournament. This was her 41st WTA tour singles title and first in more than four years. Hingis then reached the quarterfinals at the French Open, losing to Clijsters, and the third round at Wimbledon, losing to Ai Sugiyama. Her U.S. Open return was short lived, losing in the second round 6-2, 6-4 to Virginie Razzano, who was ranked outside the top 100.

In her first tournament since the U.S. Open, Hingis won the second title of her comeback at the Tier III Sunfeast Open in Kolkata, India. She defeated unseeded Russian Olga Poutchkova 6-0, 6-4 in the final after defeating Sania Mirza 6-1, 6-0 in a semifinal. The following week in Seoul, Hingis notched her 50th match win of the year before losing in the second round to Mirza 4-6, 6-0, 6-4.

During her 8 months back on the WTA tour, Hingis has reached three Tier I finals - the first in Tokyo (falling to Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-0, after defeating Maria Sharapova in a semifinal), then in Rome (winning the title over Dinara Safina 6-2, 7-5), and in Montreal (falling to Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 6-3). She has beaten several top players in her comeback, including Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport, Dementieva, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Venus Williams.

Hingis is currently ranked No. 8 in the world.

Controversy

Hingis is also well known for usually being outspoken and "sharp tongued." During her career, Hingis has made a number of statements about her fellow players that have subsequently become the focus of attention and the source of controversy.

• Referring obliquely to Amélie Mauresmo's lesbianism on the eve of their 1999 Australian Open final, Hingis told reporters, "She's here with her girlfriend. She's half a man already."

• After the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena) had complained of discrimination against them, Hingis told Time Magazine in 2001: "Being black only helps them. Many times they get sponsors because they are black. And they have had a lot of advantages because they can always say, 'It's racism.' They can always come back and say, 'Because we are this color, things happen.'" In the U.S., this comment garnered considerable attention, although elsewhere her comment was mostly greeted with indifference.

• At the peak of the Williams sisters and Hingis' competitive and fierce rivalry, Hingis stated in a press conference during the 1999 U.S. Open refering to the sisters' remarks, "They always have big mouths. They always talk a lot. It's happened before, so it's gonna happen again. I don't really worry about that."
• On the long-dominant German player, Steffi Graf, Hingis said, "Steffi has had some results in the past, but it's a faster, more athletic game now than when she played. She is old now. Her time has passed." (Hingis made this comment in 1998 while Graf was on an injury-related hiatus from tennis.)

• Responding in a 1999 press conference on why she terminated her doubles partnership with former Wimbledon champ Jana Novotna, Hingis remarked, "She's old and slow."

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (5)

Runner-ups (7)

Performance timeline

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the tournament in Seoul, South Korea, which ended on October 1, 2006.

A = did not participate in the tournament

SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played

¹ The San Diego tournament achieved Tier I status only in 2004.

² If ITF women's circuit (Hardcourt: 12-2; Carpet: 6-1) and Fed Cup (10-0) participations are included, overall win-loss record stands at 521-117.

WTA Tour singles titles (42)

Doubles (37)

Mixed Doubles

• 2006 Australian Open (w/ Mahesh Bhupati)

Team Competition

• 2001 Hopman Cup (w/ Roger Federer)

WTA Tour career earnings

* As of September 25, 2006.

Notable matches

• 1996 Italian Open quarterfinal: defeated Steffi Graf, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
• 1996 Chase Championships final: lost to Graf, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 4-6, 6-0 in the only women's tournament that featured a best-of-five set final. Entering the tournament with a world ranking of seventh, Hingis ended the year as world number four.
• 1997 French Open final: lost to Iva Majoli 6-4, 6-2. Majoli snapped Hingis' 37-match winning streak and prevented her from achieving a calendar year Grand Slam. This was Hingis' first lost in 1997.
• 1997 U.S. Open final: defeated Venus Williams 6-0, 6-4. The 16-year-old Hingis faced the unseeded 17-year-old Williams. The match reflected the changing of the guard in women's tennis, ushering in the new generation of power baseliners as well as the budding rivalry between Hingis and the Williams sisters.
• 1997 Philadelphia final: defeated Lindsay Davenport 7-5, 6-7(7), 7-6(4). After winning three straight three-set matches to reach the final, the top-seeded Hingis held off third-ranked Davenport.
• 1998 Chase Championships final: defeated Davenport 7-5, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. Hingis and Davenport dominated the 1998 season, winning four and six titles, respectively, coming into the tournament. Hingis won her fifth title, although she had to settle for the number two spot as Davenport finished the year as the best women's tennis player.
• 1999 French Open final: lost to Graf, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. Graf won the title in her last appearance at the French Open, defeating the top three players in the world.
• 1999 Wimbledon first round: lost to Jelena Dokic 6-2, 6-0. Billed as one of the greatest upsets in Wimbledon's 113-year history, Hingis was beaten by a qualifier in the opening round. This was only the third time in the tournament's history that the top seeded woman lost in the first round. The loss ended Hingis' streak of making at least the semifinals in 11 consecutive Grand Slam singles tournaments. Two years later, as the top seed, she also was defeated in the opening round, this time by 83rd-ranked Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-4, 6-2.
• 1999 Grand Slam Cup semifinal: lost to Venus Williams 6-2, 6-7(6), 9-7. The fourth-seeded Williams beat the top-seeded Hingis. Williams blasted 18 aces, Hingis none.
• 2000 Australian Open final: lost to Davenport 6-1, 7-5.
• 2001 Australian Open quarterfinal: defeated Serena Williams 6-2, 3-6, 8-6. She went on to defeat older sister Venus in a semifinal, handing Venus her career-worst defeat, 6-1, 6-1. In doing so, she became the first player to beat both of the Williams sisters in a single Grand Slam tournament. Hingis was defeated in the final by Jennifer Capriati 6-4, 6-3.
• 2002 Australian Open final: lost to Capriati 4-6, 7-6(7), 6-2. In her sixth straight Australian Open final, Hingis once again faced Capriati. Although Hingis led 4-0 in the second set and held four match points, she failed to close out the match. The on court temperature hovered in the mid-30s to high-40s (Celsius). As both struggled with the heat, the players were given a 10-minute heat break at the end of the second set, when they immediately walked into the locker room to lie on tables and pack their limbs with ice.
• 2006 Australian Open quarterfinal: lost to Kim Clijsters 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. In just her third tournament and her first major tournament since her comeback started, Hingis reached the quarterfinals. She became the first wildcard and lowest-ranked woman to reach that round in 25 years.
• 2006 Tokyo (Pan-Pacific) semifinal: defeated Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-1. Hingis defeated a top five player for the first time in her comeback.
• 2006 Indian Wells fourth found: defeated Davenport 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Renewing a rivalry that had been shelved since 2001, Hingis notched her second top five win. This was their earliest meeting in a tournament since their first one in 1995.
• 2006 Italian Open semifinal: defeated Venus Williams, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3. Hingis notched her 500th career win by beating an old rival. Hingis went on to claim the first title in her comeback.

External links

• WTA Tour profile for Martina Hingis
• Martina Hingis Site
• Martina Hingis Photos