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'How about a little credit' Doubles champions upset by Hingis' attitude
Posted: Friday January 28, 2000 12:42 PM
MELBOURNE, Australia (Reuters) -- Martina Hingis was branded a bad loser on Friday after she suffered her first defeat at the Australian Open for four years in the final of the women's doubles. Top seeds Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs beat world No. 1 Hingis and French partner Mary Pierce 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 to claim their first Grand Slam title. It was the first match the 19-year-old Swiss, winner of three straight singles and doubles titles, had lost in Melbourne since 1996. So disgusted was Hingis with the defeat that she refused to address the crowd at the trophy ceremony, stoking memories of her petulant performance after Steffi Graf beat her in the singles final at the French Open last year. Australian Stubbs and her American partner, who had narrowly lost two semifinals to Hingis and partners in 1998 and 1999, were angered by the teenager's reaction in the locker room. "All she kept telling me was how bad she played today," Stubbs said. "How about a little credit as well?" "It's very hard for these players sometimes to give their opponents credit just because they've had a bad day. It's so annoying," Stubbs said. Hingis plays American Lindsay Davenport in the singles final on Saturday. Raymond and Stubbs, regular doubles partners since 1996 with 11 titles together, stuck to their game plan to drill the ball to Pierce but the Frenchwoman held her own. It was Hingis who turned out to be the weak link on a center court she refers to as home. "Now you know how other humans feel," Stubbs crowed at Hingis who dropped her service twice in the final set. Hingis and Pierce, seeded third together, managed to fend off two match points with big passing shots, leaving Stubbs flat on the ground on the second match point. But the top seeds eventually took the match when Hingis slapped a forehand return long. "Of course it's disappointing for me. I didn't play my best," said Hingis. The Swiss teenager first won the Australian Open doubles title in 1997 with Natasha Zvereva, then again with Mirjana Lucic, and last year with Anna Kournikova. But this year was not to be. After claiming on Thursday, "I beat all the players," Hingis said on Friday that losing the doubles title was just as bad as losing in the singles. "Of course I don't feel that great right now. You never want to lose, not in a Grand Slam final," she said. "I'm going to go out there and hit a little bit more. I don't want to finish off the day like this."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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