Martina Hingis (born September 30, 1980 in Košice, Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia) is a former World No. 1 Swiss tennis player. Known as the "Swiss Miss", she has won five Grand Slam singles titles (three Australian Open, one Wimbledon, and one US Open). She has also won nine Grand Slam women's doubles titles, including holding all these for a calendar Grand Slam in 1998. She set a series of "youngest-ever" records before ligament injuries in both of her ankles forced her to withdraw from professional tennis at the relatively young age of 22.
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. 9 in the world rankings. Having won her 1st return title at the tier 1 tournament in Rome
She is currently dating fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek.
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 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 at the Australian Open.
Hingis was twice rated among FHM magazine's 100 sexiest women, and her championship doubles partnership with tennis' all-time 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".
Hingis becomes the youngest Grand Slam singles winner in the 20th century by winning the 1997 Australian Open.In 1996, Hingis became the youngest Wimbledon champion when she teamed with Helena Suková to win the women's doubles title aged 15 years and 9 months. She also won her first professional singles title that year at Filderstadt, Germany. She reached the singles semi-finals at the 1996 Australian and US Opens, and she lost to Steffi Graf in a five-set final (4-6, 6-4, 0-6, 6-4, 0-6) at the year-end WTA Tour Championships. Following her win at Filderstadt, Hingis capped a great autumn by beating the reigning Australian Open champion and #1 (co-ranked with Graf) player, Monica Seles, 6-2 6-0 in the final at Oakland.
In January 1997, Hingis became the youngest Grand Slam singles winner in the 20th century by winning the Australian Open aged 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 went on to win the US Open title by triumphing over another up-and-coming star, 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, and lost in the final of the US Open to Lindsay Davenport. Davenport ended an 80-week stretch Hingis' had enjoyed as the No. 1 single player in October 1998, but Hingis ended the year by beating Davenport in the final of the 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 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 US 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 Chase Championships (The former WTA Championships), but lost 4-6, 2-6 to Lindsay Davenport.
In 2000, Martina and Mary Pierce were runners-up in the Australian Open Women's Doubles tournament.
Hingis' three-year stranglehold 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. Though she won no Grand Slams that year, she held on to the No. 1 ranking following nine tournament wins including the 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. But having led by a set and 4-0 (and even having a few match points), Hingis went on to lose 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 never able to recapture her best form. Her doctors thought that she was able to play, and some believed that her losses were more a result of the new power game (as played by Davenport, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati, etc.) passing her by than any debilitating physical ailments.
In 2003, at the age of 22, Hingis announced her retirement from tennis after losing her battle with severe ankle problems (ligament damage) and dwindling results. In several interviews, she indicated she was attending an advanced English course at AKAD in Zürich in order to broaden her career opportunities.
During her tennis career, Hingis had 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 to attempt a comeback.
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 competition on July 7. 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 made the quarterfinals before losing to Kim Clijsters, the 2nd seed. However, Hingis won the mixed doubles finals with teammate Mahesh Bhupathi of India. This was her first career Grand Slam mixed doubles title, and fourteenth overall (5 singles, 9 doubles).
On May 19, 2006, Hingis posted her landmark 500th career singles match victory in the quarterfinals of the Tier I Italian Open in Rome, beating Top 20 player Pennetta, and two days later won the tournament - her 41st WTA Tour singles title and first in more than four years, confirming her return to the top echelons of the game. Hingis continued her great form by reaching the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and the third round at Wimbledon. She is currently ranked #9 in the world.
Hingis has shot up the WTA rankings and only took her 8 months to start from unranked to the top 10. Hingis has already made three Tier I finals on her full-scale comback - the first in Tokyo (falling to Elena Dementieva 6-2 6-0, after defeating Sharapova in the semi-finals), 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 a whole field of top players in her comeback, including Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport, Elena Dementieva and Venus Williams.
Hingis, nicknamed the "Swiss Miss," quickly won over crowds with her attractive all-court playing style. She lacked the outright power of many of her strongest opponents, but compensated for this with fluent, precise groundstrokes, skill at the net, outstanding shot selection, and an uncanny sense for anticipating where her opponent would be hitting the next shot (and positioning herself appropriately). She commands top-notch technique on all strokes, and prefers to 'place' her shots rather than to go for outright power. Using this tactic she'll hit a series of shots, forcing her opponents to fall more and more out of position until there is a clear opening for a winner. And because her shots have a very low margin for error, she's able to last in very long rallies. Commentators throughout the years have observed that the longer the point goes, the more advantageous it is for Hingis. Many commentators and tennis experts claim that Hingis' excellent two-handed backhand is her 'bread and butter shot'. Even though many say that it has improved after her comeback, her weak serve which is largely based around placement, rather than power, is her main weakness. Hingis is praised for 'outsmarting' her opponents rather than 'outpowering' them.
