Martina Hingis Biography - Born To Play, Turns Professional, Chronology, Dominates Women's Tennis, Power Overcomes Finesse - CONTACT INFORMATION
game won five top
1980-
Swiss tennis player
Martina Hingis, who has won five Grand Slam singles titles and over $17 million in prize money, was at the top of her game and the top of the world in 1997, the year she won the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, and fell just one match short of also taking the French Open title. She was a brash, self-confident, fun-loving teenager who could dissect an opponent by playing tennis with the innate strategy of a chess master. But, at just five-feet-seven-inches and 130 pounds, Hingis's game of ball movement and finesse has been overcome by a new game of women's tennis that thrives on power.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Address: c/o WTA Tour, 133 1st Street NE, Saint Petersburg, Florida 33701.
Additional Topics
Martina Hingis was born September 30, 1980 in Kosice, Slovakia (then part of Czechoslovakia). Her father, Karol Hingis, was a mechanic and a tennis enthusiast. Her mother, Monica Molitor, was an eighteen-year-old ranked tennis player from Roznov when she married Hingis; Martina was their only child. Even before her daughter's birth, Molitor was convinced that Hingis was destined for tennis.…
Hingis turned professional in 1994, just four days after her fourteenth birthday. For Hingis, tennis was fun, as was traveling the world with her mother, receiving unending attention from the press, and earning millions in endorsement contracts. Winning, Hingis would often unabashedly admit, was easy. She didn't like to practice and traded traditional workouts for horseback riding, hitting …
In 1997 Hingis dominated the tour. She became the first player since Graf in 1993 to reach the finals of all four Grand Slam singles events, winning three of the four. Hingis went undefeated through her first 37 matches, tying Navratilova's 1978 second-best record (Graf went 45-0 in 1987). On March 31, 1996, after defeating Monica Seles in the Lipton Championships, 6-2, 6-1, Hingis attained…
During 1999, the supremely confident Hingis began to show cracks in her armor. Prone to speak bluntly and with small regard for tact, Hingis found herself in hot water at the 1999 Australian Open when she reportedly made derisive comments about her openly gay opponent in the finals, Amelie Mauresmo. Hingis was roundly criticized for her remark, which she refused to acknowledge or apologize for. Hi…
Ahead 6-4, 2-0 in the [1999] French Open final against [Steffi] Graf… Hingis protested a poor line call, failed to get an overrule and simply couldn't let the matter go. Hingis threw an epic tantrum…. [she] walkedaround the net to Graf's side and pointed out the spot where her disputed shot had fallen. The French fans pounced; boos and hisses filled the air. Hingis plop…
The Complete Marquis Who's Who. New York: Marquis Who's Who, 2001. Newsmakers, Issue 1. Detroit: The Gale Group, 1999. Sports Stars. Series 1-4. Detroit: U•X•L, 1994-98. Heilpern, John. "Born to Serve." Vogue, (July 1997): 159-61. "Hingis Pulls Out of Aussie Open." Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, (December 11, 2002). Jenkins, Sally. "Ma…
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User Comments
over 2 years ago
shyamsundarsinha
5 feet 7 inches; wt>>74kg