The Martina Hingis Comeback Thread

[Heide Hugentobler]

Hopp, Swiss Miss! ;D

[Heide Hugentobler]

excellent start at the Gold Coast .

Martina d. Vento-Kabchi 6-2 6-1

[Heide Hugentobler]

Hingis makes winning return from retirement (from yahoo sports)

January 2, 2006

GOLD COAST, Australia (AP) -- Martina Hingis won in her return to competitive tennis Monday, beating Venezuela's Maria Vento-Kabchi 6-2, 6-1 in a first-round match at the Australian women's hardcourt championships.

The 25-year-old Hingis, who won five Grand Slam singles titles before retiring in 2002 because of ankle, heel and foot injuries, started tentatively as both players exchanged service breaks.

But Hingis, a former world No. 1 and three-time Australian Open champion, showed no sign of the extended layout as she outplayed Vento-Kabchi.

"I was a little nervous," Hingis told the crowd at the sold-out Royal Pines stadium after the match. "I'd like to thank my family and friends for supporting me."

It was Hingis' first WTA Tour match since losing to Elena Dementieva in Filderstadt, Germany, in October 2002.

Tournament spokesman Eloise Tyson said Hingis appeared to be injury free at the end of the match.

Hingis will face seventh-seeded Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic in the second round.

Hingis also plans to play at next week's Sydney International as a wild card, and at the Australian Open at Melbourne beginning Jan. 16.

[adeegee]

Martina

[Heide Hugentobler]

GOLD COAST, Australia - Martina Hingisf perfect record in her comeback tournament ended Friday with a 1-6, 7-6 (2) 6-2 loss to fourth-seeed Flavia Pennetta of Italy in the semifinals of the Australian womenfs hardcourt championships.

Hingis saw the end of her three-match winning streak in her return from retirement following three years away due to foot, ankle and heal injuries. Afterward, she announced she would pull out of her scheduled semifinal doubles match later Friday with partner Tatiana Golovin of Russia due to a hip flexor strain.

In the other singles semifinal Friday, Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic beat third-seeded Dinara Safina of Russia 6-4, 6-2 to advance to Saturdayfs final against Pennetta. Safarova beat top-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland in the quarterfinals Thursday and sixth-seeded Ai Sugiyama of Japan in the first round.

Hingis is still scheduled to play in next week’s Sydney International on a wild card and the Australian Open at Melbourne, a tournament she has won three times.


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[Heide Hugentobler]

Hingis bows out of first comeback tournament


The fourth-seeded Italian beat Hingis 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2 at Royal Pines, ending her opponent's three-match winning streak.

Hingis said she had strained a hip-flexor muscle towards the end of the second set.

"As a player and a competitor you try to overcome things like that and still play until the end of the match," she said.

"If I was to evaluate this tournament right away, I'm very happy and very positive about what I've achieved this week. I don't think anybody expected me to come out like this, so it's pretty good."

Return to form

This week's tournament, which comes ahead of the Australian Open later in the month, marks Hingis's return to the professional circuit after three years away due to foot, ankle and heal injuries.

Hingis has received plaudits from tennis commentators for showing glimpses of the skills which took her to five grand slam titles before she retired from the game in 2002.

She survived longer at the tournament than her Swiss compatriot, Patty Schnyder.

Schnyder is the titleholder at Royal Pines but crashed out of the quarter-finals on Thursday after losing to Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic in straight sets, 4-6, 3-6.

Future plans

Following Friday's match, Hingis announced she would pull out of her scheduled semi-final doubles tie with partner Tatiana Golovin of Russia.

She still plans to play in next week's Sydney International on a wild card and the Australian Open at Melbourne beginning on January 16, a tournament she has won three times.

Prior to her semi-final defeat, Hingis revealed how she was coping with the pressure of competing under the media spotlight.

"I can only play match by match and get out there and compete," she said, in reference to comments from world number one Lindsay Davenport and number two Kim Clijsters that she may find it hard to come back.

"You always have those doubts, but I can only show them the results. Either you belong to the top or you don't."

swissinfo with agencies

[Heide Hugentobler]

[Heide Hugentobler]

Martina's dream comeback falters

By AMY HARRIS

January 07, 2006

A WEEK into her official comeback and Martina Hingis realised that her head is still willing but her body may have some catching up to do after a semi-final loss at the Australian Women's Hardcourt Championships.

The 25-year-old returning Swiss star admitted she played out her three-set loss to Italy's Flavia Pennetta with a hip-flexor strain which caused her to forfeit her doubles semi-final with French partner Tatiana Golovin yesterday afternoon.

She will now take a couple of days to reassess her fitness before deciding if she will compete in the Medibank International in Sydney or hold out for her grand slam comeback at the Australian Open from January 16.

"I played a lot of tennis this week and I'm not used to it. I really didn't expect myself to come this far," said Hingis, after going down 1-6 7-6 6-2 to the No. 4 seed yesterday.

"I'm not 18 any more. I can't expect my body to be perfect after I haven't done anything for three years, but I just have to go on positive with my head and chin up and try and compete as well as I can.

"I will just have to look after myself a little more from now on."

But showing some grace in defeat, Hingis refused to take anything away from Pennetta who has earned a place in just her third tour final.

"She played a great match and as at least I was able to compete. It was a great game of tennis and I enjoyed it."

Hingis dominated the first set 6-1 but looked to be obviously hampered by her injury in the following two sets, dropping the second 6-7 before winning just two games in the deciding set.

She later said forfeiting the match was never an option.

"As a player and a competitor you just try and overcome things like that and play to the end of the match," Hingis said.

To her credit Pennetta showed grit to battle from a set down and break serve at 6-5 in the second when Hingis was serving for the match.

Ranked 22 in the world, Pennetta will go into today's final as the favourite against unseeded Czech Republic surprise packet Lucie Safarova, who cruised past Russia's Dinara Safina 6-4 6-2 yesterday.

Hingis's demise was an unfortunate blow to tournament organisers, and no doubt to Hingis, who was primed to reach the final of her first comeback tournament and ultimately cap a fairytale return to the women's tour.

Instead she will fly out of the coast today to make the most of her two-day break before the first round in Sydney.

"I will just try and flush out this injury over the next few days and rest up until I play next week," she said.

While marking the exit of an established former champion, yesterday also heralded the arrival of a bona fide talent in Safarova who will play her fourth Tour final today since turning pro in 2001.

A powerful baseliner who prides herself on her blistering return of serve, Safarova quietly disposed of Safina, who was the highest-ranked player (20) remaining of the four players in yesterday's semi-finals.

"I have worked a lot on my return of serve because all of the girls have big serves now," said Safarova, who started tennis at age three in a bid to emulate her older sister Veronika, who has since quit the sport.

"I'm just happy to have made the final of the first tournament of the year. I am so happy that all of the work I have been doing on my game is starting to show."

Although unseeded and ranked outside the top 50 in the world, Safarova is still regarded a good chance against Pennetta in what should be an all-out baseline assault.

"We both have similar games, that's for sure," Safarova said.

"She is a power-player, too, but I won't be changing anything. I will play my usual game."

source: www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17748991-5001023,00.html

[Heide Hugentobler]

Former 'Swiss Miss' Martina Hingis is all set to make her Grand Slam comeback as she goes up against Vera Zvonareva at the Australian Open in the late match on Tuesday. Hingis has not played in Melbourne since she disputed the final in 2002 and she claims that she is happy to be back in the fold.

Hingis returned to professional tennis just two weeks ago, and her preparations for the Open went relatively to plan - she made it to the semi finals in Gold Coast and then lost to fellow former-world number one Justine Henin-Hardenne in the opening round in Sydney; by no means a disgrace.

"The first tournament in Gold Coast went well, it was a good start. I played some matches and won some of them," Hingis said.

"I played the semi final in front of a big audience, so it was a very good beginning and I got some motivation. It is a lot of fun, especially here in Australia where I played well all the time. "

NERVOUS

Despite all her experience, the three-time Australian Open champion is still susceptible to nerves, maybe even more so now than before her retirement.

"When I was 17 years old I didn't know that nervousness at all," Hingis said.

"This is kind of special. You have to have more self-control and you have to build up a whole new routine. I have to go step by step to know where I am and to find out what I have to improve."

Her opponent in the first round presents a new challenge as the two have never met in competition before and it could be said that the draw has not been kind to Hingis.

"I never played against Vera," said Hingis. "She was coming up when I was about to retire, so we never played against each other.

"She was in the top ten in 2004, when she had a great year. Last season was not that good with ups and downs, but I know what to expect from the Russian players.

"We did some research and I know what I have to do - so I hope it will go well."

LONG ABSENCE

Four years out is a long time in the world of sport, but Hingis is prepared for a new game and one that will be a lot tougher physically than the one she remembers.

"Today tennis is much tougher and more athletic - and tougher from the mental point. You have to play each game," she said.

"You can't rest like in former days for one or two games. You can't have any pause. If you lose your concentration you are out. The opponent smells your weakness and it is over."

source: www.eurosport.com/tennis/australian-open/2006/sport

[TennisHack]

Hingis brings back cringe factor
By Martin Johnson
(Filed: 20/01/2006)

sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/01/20/stjohn20.xml&sSheet=/sport/2006/01/20/ixtenn.html

She's been a long time out of the game, and the world of tennis is all the better for having Martina Hingis back in action. For artistry, she is a Michelangelo in a world of broad-shouldered Amazons hurling buckets of emulsion at each other, and by no means the least uplifting aspect of her being back on court is that it keeps her out of the TV commentary booth.

Unlike her tennis, she has a delivery marginally less interesting - and certainly less informative - than the Speaking Clock.

Three years ago, at the ripe old age of 22, Hingis decided she'd had enough of bonking tennis balls over a net, which just about qualifies as early retirement, even in the bib and rattle environment of women's tennis. She repaired to her Swiss mansion, idling away her time shopping, skiing and riding her horses, and her only contact with a tournament she had won three times was popping over to Melbourne every January to giggle some vacuous inanity down a microphone.

However, she found that while £13 million in the bank from prize money alone was a decent enough pension, life without tennis had left a hole of Swiss cheese-like proportions. She took up cooking when someone bought her a book for Christmas, which only served to convince her that wanting to learn how to boil an egg was evidence of near terminal boredom.

So here she is again, and in ordinary circumstances - women's tennis being a game in which you can break into the top 100 merely by knowing which end of the racket you're meant to hit the ball with - a player ranked 349th in the world breezing through her opening two grand slam matches for the concession of only five games would be a remarkable story.

To put that into context, Hingis' present position on the women's list would - were she suddenly to unearth an auntie who lived in Newport Pagnell - make her the British No 6, sandwiched between Sarah Borwell and Emily Webley-Smith. In golfing terms, it's a bit like turning up for your club's monthly medal and watching Tiger Woods pulling his trolley onto the first tee.

Finland's Emma Laine must have felt a bit like that yesterday. Ranked 264 places ahead of Hingis, she was wiped out 6-1, 6-1 in 52 minutes, despite the match being played in temperatures so close to a Finnish sauna that she might have felt like beating herself with twigs during the changeovers.

Hingis' decision to retire was based partly on bodily niggles, but mostly because she was playing the sort of tennis that stretches back into the era of wooden rackets and Teddy Tinling dresses. She felt like someone who'd been entered into the men's singles by mistake, and there were too many days when she looked over the net at an opponent who - despite the dress and the earrings - resembled a linebacker for the Washington Redskins.

Hingis had two options if she wanted to stay in touch with the new breed of power player - take some steroids, or fatten herself up by moving to Australia. Jelena Dokic's father may be a sandwich short of a picnic, but he wasn't too far off the mark on in his latest rant about Australians tucking into hot sausages when the temperature hits 40C.

It was searingly hot yesterday, and yet the meat pie and French fry stalls were doing more trade than the ice cream stalls. There is special flavour about the Australian Open, and it is mostly tomato sauce. No wonder Nicole Pratt, one of their veteran women, has been suggesting that it doesn't need Hercule Poirot to get to the bottom of football's ubiquitous inquiry as to who ate all the pies - as far as she's concerned, it's Australia's portly young female tennis players.

Hingis' Finnish opponent was certainly built as though she might prefer a pie to a roll mop herring, but although she hit the ball twice as hard as Hingis, she would only have been competitive had the net been a foot lower and the sidelines a yard wider. Questions still remain, however, as to whether Hingis can cope with the girls who hit both hard and accurately.

Hingis is hugely popular in Australia, possibly because of her exquisite tennis, but more likely because she tells them what they want to hear. The on-court interviews at the end of games are truly cringe-making, but anyone who pipes up with: "It's just so great to be here in Australia, you know, the fans, you know, are so great, you know, it's like my second home here, you know," is guaranteed a standing ovation. And in this little exercise, Hingis is ranked 348 places above her tennis ranking.