http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/) http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/house/999999.gif
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/printerfriendly.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/IMAY_NYTIMES_88X31_2k.jpg (http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch2006-emailtools06-nyt5&ad=printer-IMAY88x31&goto=http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/imaginemeandyou/)
January 16, 2006
Sports of The Times
Hingis Returns With Perspective to Face Sluggers
By HARVEY ARATON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/columns/harveyaraton/?inline=nyt-per)
FROM a world away, on the eve of her return to Grand Slam tennis, Martina Hingis (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/martina_hingis/index.html?inline=nyt-per) knocked on wood - or maybe graphite for additional power - and reported no pain in her surgically repaired feet. "Everything else hurts," she said, punctuating the punch line with her trademark giggle.
Beyond old friends and foes, many faces in the locker room are unfamiliar, she said from Melbourne, Australia, in a telephone interview. Three years away can feel like 30, as the women's tennis tour, now under the sponsorship of Sony Ericsson, ground on without her, taxing other transient bodies, from one continent and tournament to the next.
This week it is the Australian Open, and Hingis plays Vera Zvonareva, one of the many Russians who have become Tour fixtures during her absence, in the first round tomorrow.
Hingis was almost 22 when she exited the 2002 United States Open in the fourth round. Not long after, she said, in so many words, thanks for the memories, the checks, the trophies, the five Grand Slam titles. She went home to Switzerland to ride horses, take classes to improve her already proficient English and live a life apart from grueling practices and from battles with, among others, the family Williams.
She skied some, basked in the winter warmth of Florida, where she owns a home, soaked up the freedom. Without the now-aborted retirement, she could not have reached the conclusion that she "didn't find the total joy as when I was playing on center court."
Drawing on those English lessons, Hingis rethought her word choice. "Maybe not joy, but satisfaction," she said. Even for small road comforts, "like when you're in a hotel and your laundry comes out clean."
Perspective is wonderful but typically unattainable when wearing career blinders. Hingis turned pro on Oct. 14, 1994, two weeks after her 14th birthday. The next summer, she played her first United States Open, losing to Gabriela Sabatini in the fourth round. Calling the match for American television was Martina Navratilova (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/martina_navratilova/index.html?inline=nyt-per), for whom Hingis was named.
Navratilova predicted long-term stardom for Hingis based on reports of a well-rounded life. "Her mother's cool," Navratilova said that day, referring to Melanie Molitor. "She encourages her to be interested in other things."
Then came several years of the standard enticements, of being No. 1, of protecting the ranking, of a late and entirely understandable adolescent rebellion, of trying to match her finesse and guile against the growing army of slugging big babes.
By 2002, Hingis seemed as fried as her feet, and until she recently returned to play a couple of Australian Open tuneups - winning a few matches the first time out but losing to Justine Henin-Hardenne in the first round last week - she appeared to have been outlasted on the Tour by Martina the First, who is almost double her age.
Do the math. "At 25, this is my last chance to go out and try," Hingis said, on the subject of her comeback.
Granted, Navratilova is an extreme case and these days merely an endearing Tour doubles embellishment. But she is always a welcome sight for middle-aged eyes because tennis - particularly in relation to its market adversary, golf - is a sport that needs all the adults it can get.
In this country, tennis faces a steep climb in the popularity rankings, as it mostly depends on personalities that are far from fully developed. Sex appeal goes only so far. As much as Madison Avenue loves Maria Sharapova, there are few bigger turnoffs than watching her dictatorial father, Yuri, verbally intrude on her playing space from the family box.
For the record, Melanie Molitor remains her daughter's coach, but at least for now, from far enough away so that Hingis can be her own woman, and keep the family laundry clean. With her in Australia is Mario Widmer, who is Molitor's friend, a sports journalist, a man of words who has provided for Hingis a mantra to help her cope with the more powerful pace of a sport she last dominated in the 20th century.
"Relentless," Hingis revealed, giggling again but dead serious about what she will need to succeed without a damaging serve or the ability to strike winners on cue.
How long her comeback lasts depends on how soon she determines if there is room for her in the women's tennis penthouse at a time when there is no consensus No. 1. "When you've been the best, there are no seconds," she said, while admitting she doesn't really know how to define success in her second tennis life.
The first time around, she played and played until her career came to a screeching halt. Tennis insiders once praised Hingis's itinerant perseverance, while criticizing Venus and Serena Williams for beaming on and off the Tour. Hindsight tells us that neither approach has produced maximum results, so maybe that's a call for the smart people who run tennis to contrive a system that allows these young people to breathe, grow, coexist with their sport without being cannibalized by it.
"It has to be more important than anything else," Hingis said, though not to the point where there is nothing else. She won't be playing at 50, like the original Martina, but it would be nice to have Hingis's tennis midlife perspective and her fluid, contrasting style around again, maybe all the way to the creaky and forbidding age of 30.
E-mail:
[email protected]
Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)