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Martina Hingis: Star in All Areas of Tennis

By Christopher Weis

Sep 13, 2015; New York, NY, USA; Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Sania Mirza of India with the US Open Trophy after beating Casey Dellacqua of Australia and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan in the Women
Sep 13, 2015; New York, NY, USA; Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Sania Mirza of India with the US Open Trophy after beating Casey Dellacqua of Australia and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan in the Women /
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One thing is for sure about tennis legend Martina Hingis: whatever she does in tennis, she succeeds and succeeds some more. Close to two decades after her first Grand Slam triumph at the Australian Open in 1997, Hingis is still going strong.  Only now, her success is in doubles.

I’ll condense the story. Martina Hingis won five Grand Slam singles titles in the 1990s. Due to injuries, she retired from tennis in 2002.  After multiple setbacks, she returned in 2006.  In 2007, she had injury problems and was suspended for two years due to a doping violation.

She played World Team Tennis starting in 2010.  In late 2013, the same year she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, she returned to the tennis court in doubles. She achieved some success in 2014.

2015, however, brought enormous amounts of success to Hingis’s career.  In women’s doubles, she won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, both with Sania Mirza. In addition, she took the year-end title, also with Mirza. In mixed doubles, Hingis won the Australian Open and the U.S. Open, where she partnered with Leander Paes.

As if all that winning was not enough, Hingis and Mirza won the Australian Open in 2016, as well.  They will be gunning for their fourth straight Grand Slam title in women’s doubles at the French Open.  Based on their play since they joined forces, I see no reason why they can’t achieve it.

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Here I’m going to sidebar from Hingis  to discuss Mirza a little bit more.  Mirza has won three doubles titles at Grand Slams, all of them with Hingis.  She also has taken three mixed doubles titles and also won the year-end championships in 2014, partnering with Cara Black.

Additionally, I want to talk about a competition in which Hingis has participated for years that realtively few people seem to know about: Mylan World Team Tennis.

It’s not exactly the most noticeable sport but for a few weeks in the summer in several cities, lots of top singles and doubles players play for different teams in different cities. Some are retired, such as American great Andy Roddick.  For several years, though, Hingis has played and excelled in World Team Tennis with the New York Sportimes and the Washington Kastles.  The Kastles have won five straight titles, but I’ll more fully address WTT in another post.

Back to Martina Hingis.  She’s excelled in WTT, becoming the 2012 and 2013 Female MVP. She has played and done very well in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles.

Next: Bryan Brothers: Profile and What's Ahead

Clearly, she’s excelled at every stage of her tennis career.  At 35, it’s hard to know how much longer she will play.  The good thing is that many people have gotten to see her play tennis at one stage or another.  The more that do, the better. She’s definitely got a ton of talent and is fun to watch.

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