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High hopes Hingis looks to improve Grand Slam results in 2001
Updated: Friday January 12, 2001 6:36 PM
Martina Hingis ended the 2000 women's tennis season ranked number one in the world for the third time in four years. And yet with two Grand Slam singles titles and Olympic gold in her grasp, Venus Williams had a more valid claim to top spot for many observers. Hingis won nine singles titles. A fabulous year by most standards. Simply not hers. That's because none of those titles were secured at a major championship. The closest she came was reaching the final at the Australian Open. There, she was blown off court by Lindsay Davenport -- and it rather set the tone for the rest of the season.
Then, when Hingis appeared to have Venus on the ropes in the U.S. Open semis, she couldn't find the knockout blow. Venus had the venom of shot when it mattered. Hingis was beaten again. For the first time in four years, Hingis had failed to win at least one Grand Slam singles crown. That's quite a contrast to 1997 when, in just her third run through the four majors as a 16-year-old, Hingis was one victory away from THE Grand Slam. Iva Majoli beat her in the French Open final. Hingis won the other three. The next two years brought her two more Australian Open crowns, but no other major championship.
Now she enters the Australian Open again, carrying the top ranking and number one seeding -- but the best game? That's doubtful. And yet I sense from her early 2001 efforts that Hingis has more passion and purpose, a desire to prove the world number one tag is no falsehood. Forget the gimmicky new shirt (one long sleeve, one short). That may only serve to annoy the Williams sisters. Why couldn't they have thought of that first? No, Hingis was all business, and efficient business at that, as she quickly found her winning stride in the Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia. She never had lost there in singles in three previous appearances. That record is intact. Hingis and Switzerland now own the mixed team trophy for the first time for good measure. Hingis was building on her end-of-2000 triumph in the Williams-less Chase Championships in New York. She was also making an early statement to the power-brigade that she will be back to slug it out with them, more determined and focused than ever. As I write, the latest chapter in the power struggle is about to begin at the Adidas event in Sydney. Her relationship with Swedish tennis player Magnus Norman is over. That was a supposed distraction for Martina last year. Norman said his game slumped too. A mutual break leaves Hingis looking to renew a love affair with the Grand Slams. Questions remain. What kind of shape will the Williams sisters be in? How good will a rested Davenport be? Can Mary Pierce rekindle the Roland Garros form? Hingis' answer might well be: "I don't much care." She knows she's a dominant force on Australian soil. She knows that a two-year gap since her last Grand Slam singles crown is frankly too long for one so talented. She knows this is time to set a different tone for 2001 ... that pure power won't always have its day. Phil Jones is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
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