Martina Hingis Undressed
Martina Hingis (born September 30, 1980 in Košice, Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia) is a former World No. 1-ranked Swiss tennis player. 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, and in 1998 captured all four Grand Slam women's doubles crowns. She set a series of "youngest-ever" records before ligament injuries in both of her ankles forced her to withdraw from pro tennis at the relatively young age of 22. After several surgeries and long recuperations, the 25-year-old Hingis announced on November 29, 2005, that she would return to the WTA tour. She made her professional comeback on January 2, 2006 at a low-key tournament in Gold Coast, Australia. In the 2006 Australian Open, she won several singles matches to advance to the quarter final; she also won her first Grand Slam mixed-doubles title with Mahesh Bhupathi. Hingis won her first singles title in over four years when she beat Dinara Safina 6-2 7-5 in the final of the Italian Open in Rome on May 21, 2006. She is currently dating fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek.
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Quotes:
1. "She's here with her girlfriend. She's half a man already" (referring to Amélie Mauresmo, an openly lesbian French tennis player on the eve of their 1999 Australian Open Final).
2. Being black only helps them, "Many times they get sponsors because they are black. And they have had a lot of advantages because they can always say, 'It's racism.' They can always come back and say, 'Because we are this color, things happen." (referring to the "advantages" that Venus and Serena Williams have in a Time Magazine article, 2001).
3. "It was probably one Russian too many. It used to be two Williams sisters and a Davenport. Now there's a whole army of Russians in the way." (Toray 2006 Final post-match interview)
4. "She's old and slow" (responding in a 1999 press conference on why she terminated her doubles partnership with former Wimbledon champ, Jana Novotna)