By its very definition, the off-season is supposed to signify end of tennis for another year and offer a well-earnt break for all in a sport that demands so much of both the players and fans who follow it. In reality, however, the tennis rages on in the form of “hit and giggle” exhibitions – wherein the top male and female players pocket often obscene sums of money to simply knock around the ball for an hour or two. This year, between Roger Federer’s grand tour of South America and other one-off events in cities such as Prague, Toronto, Miami, Antwerp, Singapore and many others, those “hit and giggle” exhibitions feel more prominent than ever.
It hasn’t always been laughter, however.
The year was 2000. At the time, the WTA was in a considerably different state to the tour today. Whilst the likes of Azarenka, Wozniacki, Kvitova and Radwanska today have been forced to obediently await the fall of the previous generation before ascending to the top, the young players of the late 90s and early 00s – Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, Venus Williams and Serena Williams – rapidly rose to prominence by brute force, demanding the spotlight both on and off the court and re-branding the image and core dynamics of women’s tennis in the process.
By the end of Y2K, Hingis held five Grand Slams and stood atop of the rankings for god-knows-how-many weeks, Kournikova was one of the most celebrated athletes in history, Venus had seized the previous two slams and two Olympic gold medals whilst embarking on an epic 35-match winning streak, and the legend of Serena was just unfolding. This caused friction both amongst themselves and also with the established jocks who rejected these youngsters who marched in with their over-confidence, trash talking, sex-appeal and glamour, demanding to be seen and respected.
Throughout this period, notable incidents involving these four and others mounted up; Hingis triumphantly flicked a signature Williams bead into the press crowd after defeating the elder Williams in the 1997 US Open final before declaring that she had no rivals, Serena famously brushed aside one of Hingis’ many putdowns by coyly suggesting that the Swiss champion “lacks formal education”, and long before they physically met on or off the court it was comments from a pre-teen Kournikova who sowed the first seeds of drama to come in the early 90s, as the press hyped up a Kournikova-Williams rivalry while she competed in a junior tournament at Rick Macci’s tennis academy in Delray Beach – the Williams Sisters’ old stomping grounds.
Lindsay Davenport often entered the fray too, branding Kournikova “a circus act” and allegedly kicking the bag of yet another controversial young upstart, Alexandra Stevenson, across the locker-room. During Venus’ extended hiatus in the first half of 2000 which spurred retirement rumours, Davenport’s sharp tongue lashed out at Williams with the quote to end all quotes: “Who knows what’s going on with that family? Serena is more friendly. At least she can bring herself to say hi. Venus can’t – or won’t – even speak. Venus likes to give the impression that she’s so great, that she’s ‘Da Bomb’, or whatever. She can say it all she wants but that just means she doesn’t have it. She gets psyched out in big matches, she’s not happy with her sister winning and the pressure is really falling on her.”
After Venus returned and claimed her first Grand Slam title barely a few months later at Wimbledon, Hingis cornered Davenport at the US Open ahead of her quarterfinal match against the younger Williams and demanded a victory. Davenport responded by expecting Hingis to reciprocate the deal and dispose of Venus, and thus the infamous anti-Williams pact was born. It made headline news and became embroiled in drama as Richard Williams had his own unsurprisingly controversial opinion on the pact. Davenport did indeed oust Serena, and Serena did little disguise her utter disgust as afterwards; “Obviously no one would want to see an all-Williams final because everyone doesn’t really like us. It’s going to happen in the future, inevitably. Nobody’s going to be able to stop it.” Venus was even more furious, but she publicly responded with humour, jokingly suggesting “It’s getting to be like the WWF.” And then she beat them both to take the title.
Nonetheless, the most dramatic incident occurred during the 2000 exhibition season. Despite forming a friendship and fruitful doubles partnership which secured the pair two Grand Slam titles and the top ranking spot in the same year, a November exhibition in Santiago, Chile between Hingis and Kournikova brought that friendship temporarily crashing down. After a questionable lines-call, Hingis asked Kournikova to intervene but the Russian sided with the original call. A fuming Hingis responded at the next change of ends as only Martina Hingis could, triumphantly shouting “Do you think you are the queen? Because I AM THE QUEEN!” Kournikova wept through the remaining games of the exhibition.
An hour-long locker room scream-fest between the pair followed as flowers, vases, trophies and insults were allegedly chucked across the room. The choice of weaponry being amusingly symbolic; Hingis craving the popularity, affection and flowers from admiring fans that were afforded to Kournikova, whilst the Russian wished for the trophies and success that had been effortlessly lapped up by Hingis. Event organizer and former pro Jaime Fillol didn’t even attempt to dampen the rumours surrounding the exhibition bust-up, instead hysterically claiming “It was so bad I thought they were going to beat each other up.”
What’s most interesting about these events is how much, despite the publicity these encounters generated and the fact that they would kill for this exposure today in 2012, the WTA openly discouraged it back then. They attempted to muzzle the Swiss Miss’ Everest-sized mouth by forcing her to attend PR training sessions and sometimes even resorted to quite ridiculous publicity stunts. Not least at the US Open in 1999 when they orchestrated a cringe-worthy public “truce” between Hingis and Richard Williams, which involved Hingis presenting Williams with a signed T-Shirt whilst reciting scripted lines. Mary Carillo summed it up best: “The WTA PR people cooked up this twisted and bizarre stunt. Hingis didn’t want to give this guy a T-shirt – she wanted to give him something else.”
Last week it was announced that Jennifer Capriati will be honoured at the Tennis Hall of Fame later this year. The reaction was unanimous satisfaction at the decision to honour the former world number one and three time Grand Slam champion. And rightly so. Even by the lofty standards of those who have achieved what she had achieved, it’s difficult to think of a player who has ridden the rollercoaster of professional tennis quite as thoroughly as the American.
In her career she has enjoyed the greatest of times – bursting onto the tour as a 13 year old girl/child/infant/toddler/baby/foetus, a year later she became the youngest player in the history of tennis to reach the top 10, she defeated Steffi Graf to win the Olympic Gold in Barcelona aged 16, she embarked on quite a legendary comeback which took her from rock bottom to the pinnacle of the tennis world and brought her those numerous Slams that she was destined to win, and so on, and on, and on…
But as we have come to learn in life, sports, and never moreso than in Jen-Cap’s capricious career, the line between triumph and disaster is perilously thin. Accompanying those career-defining moments were those catastrophic times – from her infamous burnout and breakdown which culminated in her career seemingly lying in tatters as she was arrested for shoplifting and possession of marijuana, to the on-court tantrums and drama, her numerous heartbreaking losses at the semifinal stage at her home slam, her embarrassing firing from the US Fed Cup team after breaking USTA rules, the injury that ultimately ended her career and her recent struggles with drugs which left her in hospital in 2010. To say that her career has been a mixed bag would be quite the understatement.
Of all of the memorable moments of her career, what stands out most is that final against Hingis at the Australian Open in 2002. For most of the match she was simply outplayed by a more successful and better opponent, but down 4-6 0-4 and then two match points in the energy-sucking Australian heat that forced both players to sit in the shade between points, the American she dug in deeper than she ever had before, thinking through the heat to wrestle the first away with a well-thought out point finished at the net. She eventually took the match to a third set on a tiebreak after saving the second with a soul-destroying rally, before steamrolling through the final set to lift up her third Grand Slam championship in two years. Though it turned out to be the final Slam victory of Capriati’s career, it was undoubtedly her greatest.
Ever since Caroline Wozniacki rose to the top of the WTA, countless comparisons have been made between her and the great five time Grand Slam Champion Martina Hingis. However, Martina Hingis was having none of it when she spoke to Matt Cronin in San diego;
“I think I had more game than her,” Hingis told me at the Mercury Insurance Open in San Diego: “I don’t want to be cocky about this, but I think I had more [weapons]. She’s a great fighter but I out played [opponents] and I took the ball earlier and didn’t give them as much time.”
Bingo. In recent times, we’ve seen a lot more softer side to Martina Hingis compared to the teenage glory days of trash talking every single opponent, but clearly her annoyance at being compared to a player like Wozniacki as brought about a little of the vintage blunt Martina Hingis of old. And If I was Martina Hingis, I would be offended by these comparisons too.
So often when people do attempt to draw comparisons to Martina and Karolina, they paint Martina as this retriever with great anticipation who stood far behind the baseline and was always beaten when she came up against a player of a certain quality – in other words, they paint her as Wozniacki herself. However you only have to look at any random video on youtube to see how differently Hingis played her tennis.
As she herself said, Martina hugged the baseline and took the ball as early as anyone on tour. She simply controlled matches with her guile, variety, tactics and knowledge of exactly how to read and take apart her opponent rather than with power and weight of shot. The rare times when she was overpowered, it was against the likes of Venus, Serena, Davenport, Pierce, Capriati and co who were/are undoubtedly the most explosive big hitters the game has seen – and not crushed by a 2ft3 Dominika Cibulkova on her worst surface in the fourth round of Wimbledon.
French Eurosport are now reporting that Hingis and Federer(‘s entourage?) are to sit down next week and seriously discuss the possibility of playing in the Olympics.
Swiss Tennis president Reneacute has confirmed to Sports show Friday that a potential Federer-Hingis partnership is being considered seriously and a meeting between the two players will be held next week to discuss the matter
I still won’t believe it until it actually happens, simply because, thanks to the whole “doping” ban, there are still so many obligations that Chucky would need to fulfil before stepping back onto the professional circuit in any way, shape or form. Also, if she was to come back for the Olympics mixed doubles, she would have to first qualify for either singles or women’s doubles, bringing up the possibility of a full-fledged comeback.
But they have to get going – we’re almost a year away now and it would be quite embarrassing if she announced her intention to return yet didn’t give herself enough time to actually fulfil all the requirements in order to make herself eligible for the London games.
Serena Williams and Martina Hingis renewed their rivalry for the first time in 9 years this week as they faced-off on back to back days at World Team Tennis in New York, with Serena representing the unbeaten Washington Kastles and Martina, the New York Sportimes. Their first meeting, which Serena took 5-3, was not broadcasted live but their second match was, and the score was reversed with Martina taking the match 5-3.
With Martina’s win over Serena, those who didn’t watch the match will undoubtedly call for her return back to the tour. On one hand it’s impossible to read into anything from World Team Tennis – not only does WTT not compare to professional tennis, but Serena put in an abysmal performance, barely bothering to move her feet and routinely dumping the ball straight into the bottom (and no, that’s not hyperbole in the slightest) of the net.
However, what we did see of Martina was quite promising. After storming to 4-1 she began to shank a lot of forehands and struggled to redirect a some of Serena’s big shots, but on the whole she was very consistent, with her inside-out backhand still coming up with a few glorious strokes while her trademark variety was brilliant as ever. I think there’s a misconception that Hingis’ game simply couldn’t handle power players, but her problem wasn’t simply that a lot of players hit the ball harder – it was that those players who did hit the ball hard in her time were the likes of the Williams sisters, Davenport, Pierce, Capriati and many more – some of the most exceptional big hitters the game will most likely ever see. But in the past 12 months, the likes of Wozniacki, Azarenka, Zvonareva and even Radwanska have proven that 2011 is a very different era from the early and even mid-00s, with the more pronounced use of power and risk breeding more inconsistency, and consistency is more than enough to ensure a spot in the top 20 and 10.
Even so, I think Martina made it clear that she was not considering a singles comeback. Mid-way through the match, she missed a backhand down the line and made a loud quip along the lines of; “and this why I’m not coming back”. Then, in the interview she spoke candidly about her heart “not (being) able to handle” more than the one-set layout of world team tennis. But still, after watching her in action during the Women’s doubles, a doubles return remains a must. In the presence of two other doubles legends still active on the tour, she put on a masterful display and was easily the best player on the court. If she doesn’t at least come back to doubles, it will be a huge waste of such great and rare talent.
My favourite moment of the tie had to be in the women’s singles as Martina turned the clock back to 2000, coming up with a trademark dropper-lob-dropper combo. Serena chased the first two down before narrowly missing the third and, unable to stop herself from crashing into the net, she hurdled over it onto Martina’s side of the court before doubling over with laughter. Martina, also laughing, then walked over to Serena and patted her sympathetically on the back. A nice moment between both two former bitter rivals and two great champions.
I don’t think old videos of their feud will ever cease to crack me up.
Yesterday, Martina Hingis continued her unbeaten singles run in Billie Jean King’s World Team Tennis league, picking up her biggest win of the series as she defeated 28th-ranked Gajdosova 5-4.
With The Daily Forehand’s chat with Martina Hingis on the possibility of collaborating with Roger Federer at next year’s London Olympics and Hingis’ massive increase in exhibition events over the last couple of months, there has been talk of Hingis possibly making a second comeback to professional tennis.
And there may just be some truth to it. One of the most obvious differences to last year’s World Team Tennis is how seriously she appears to be taking the exhibitions. While this year she was largely just enjoying herself and playing quite poorly, this year she has been all business and, all things considered, has produced some impressive tennis. I feel like she’s trying to test her current level against professional competition – if she feels that she can’t keep up with them then there’s no doubt that she won’t consider coming back, but if she begins to feel really good about her game then who knows?
Tomorrow will undoubtedly be the big test when she faces off against her old rival Serena Williams for the first time in nine years. It may only be an exhibition, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that Serena would hate NOTHING more than to get beaten by a retired Martina Hingis who was such a bitter rival to her in their glory days. Bring it.
