Second coming

Another return of Martina Hingis turned out to be successful

The main event of the first ten days of January in the tennis world was the full return to the WTA tour of the multiple Grand Slam winner, former world number one, Swiss Martina Hingis. Having stopped active performances in October 2002 at the age of 22 due to pain in her foot, last season she already made a trial attempt to enter the court in official competitions, but lost to the German Marlene Weingartner in her only meeting at a tournament in Thailand. After this, Martina decided to better prepare for her return.

Almost a year of intensive training brought tangible results. Having announced her intention to participate in the Australian Open in December, Hingis received a promise from the organizers to provide her with a special invitation not only to the Australian Open, but also to tournaments also taking place on the Green Continent and preceding the battles of the first Grand Slam competitions of the season. . In the Gold Coast, tennis fans saw almost the same Martina Hingis. In the opening round, the Swiss defeated the representative of Venezuela, Maria Vento-Kabchi - 6:2, 6:1, then defeated the Czech Klara Kukalova - 6:3, 6:2, and in the quarterfinals she was stronger than the Spanish Nuria Llagostra-Vives - 6: 2, 4:6, 6:0 and was stopped only one step away from the main match of the tournament. Martina's opponent in the semifinals, Italian Flavia Pennetta, who at that time was ranked 22nd in the world classification, with great difficulty, but still defeated one of the most famous tennis players of our time - 1:6, 7:6 (7:2), 6 :2.

How ready Hingis is now for meetings with the best players on the planet became clear in the first round of the next tournament in Sydney. An impartial draw brought Martina together at the start of the competition with another former first racket of the world, Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne. This would have been simply impossible before, but at the beginning of this week the name Hingis did not appear in the BTA classification at all, since she had not accumulated three tournaments played in the 12 previous months. The Swiss could not do anything against Henin-Hardenne, although at times she showed quite decent tennis - 3:6, 3:6. “I just don’t have enough playing practice yet. I’ve managed to forget something, so far I can hardly remember the manner of actions of my main rivals on the court, somewhere I lack physical preparation,” Hingis commented on her performance. — Overall, so far everything is turning out even better than I expected. I am very happy to once again be at the epicenter of tennis events. I really missed the big game.”

Knowing Martina’s perseverance and determination, experts predict that already this season she can become a full-fledged participant in the fight for the most significant titles and the highest places in the individual BTA rankings. If in 2004 the Russians practically reigned supreme at the main tournaments, then last season their position noticeably weakened due to the return from injury and illness of Henin-Hardenne and her compatriot Kim Clijsters. The appearance of Hingis on stage could make life even more difficult for our girls.

The Russians have already had relative success in January. Vera Zvonareva reached the final of the fourth category tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, where she lost to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli - 2:6, 2:6. But together with Elena Likhovtseva, Vera became the winner of these competitions. The Russians beat Emily Lo (France) and Barbara Strykova (Czech Republic) in the fight for the title - 6:3, 6:4. Dinara Safina, who performed on the Gold Coast courts in company with American Meganne Shaughnessy, also chalked up a tournament victory in the doubles combination. Svetlana Kuznetsova performed well at the Hopman Cup in Australia, winning all three of her singles matches against opponents from the USA, Sweden and Serbia and Montenegro. Only because the men's half of our team was represented at this team competition by the inexperienced Yuri Shchukin, the Russians were unable to make it to the finals - the efforts of Kuznetsova alone were clearly not enough for this.

Elena Dementieva also competed in matches this year. True, she performed at an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong, which is not included in the official WTA calendar. In singles, the Muscovite won against American Serena Williams - 6:3, 6:1 and lost to Clijsters - 3:6, 3:6. Maria Sharapova postponed her entry into the new season until the Australian Open. She was entered for the Gold Coast tournament, but withdrew due to shoulder problems.

Ilya TRISVIATSKY