Martina Hingis apparently can’t give it up. Perhaps it is true with tennis as in other areas: You can take the girl out of tennis, but you can’t take the tennis out of the girl.
Although she is not ready to launch a serious comeback after seeing the success of Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin after their returns from retirement, she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, “There’s a spark.” But she is ruling out the possibility of a return to the tour “at this point,” primarily because of all the travel. “If it was played in the backyard,” Hingis said from her home in Switzerland, “then I’d probably think about it twice.” “Tennis is still my life. Well, part of it,” she continued. “But my life is very comfortable, on the other hand. Tennis gave me a lot of things and sometimes you have to put things behind. It’s a lot of sacrifice, as well. I wouldn’t want to risk it anymore.”
Perhaps the fact that Hingis will turn 30 later this year plays a part in her decision to not return to the tour. However, she is going to be playing some serious tennis again, committing herself to a full season of World Team Tennis, the coed league founded by Billie Jean King and heading into its 35th season. Hingis will be picked by a team in the marquee player draft Feb. 11. Other top names include the Williams sisters, John McEnroe and Maria Sharapova. They will be playing only one to five matches, while Hingis is slated for all 14 in the regular season.
Hingis is a five-time Grand Slam singles champion and the youngest woman to be ranked No. 1. After retiring once in 2003 due to a persistent left-ankle injury, she made a successful return to the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at the start of the 2006 season, but a succession of injuries and a two-year suspension for testing positive for cocaine forced her to call it a day for the second time. Hingis denied taking the drug but did not appeal the ruling.
When announcing her 2nd retirement in November, 2007, Hingis said: “I attempted a comeback after a three-year break and succeeded in winning three tournaments and bringing my ranking to No. 6 in the world. But in the meantime, I’m now 27 years old and after the problems I have been having with my hip, realistically I’m too old to play top class tennis and have decided to no longer compete on the Tour.”
So this does not look like the beginning of another comeback after retirement, even though there are things about the tour that she misses, namely winning. “What I miss is probably … the winning moments — when you hold up the trophy and you know you are the best in the world and you end up winning Grand Slams” she said in her recent AP interview. “That is probably the moment an athlete is most happy.”
“You miss that, but you know that getting to that point takes a lot of years, a lot of hard work, a lot of practice. It doesn’t come from heaven,” she added. “You never forget how much work, how much pain, you go through to get there.”
In the meantime, she should enjoy the thrill of competition, and hopefully some victories, while playing World Team Tennis.
