I read this article in Saturday's paper and was a bit suprised by the tone that I had to read it again..
..I hope that the author chokes on these words when Martina becomes the eventual champion and that she never does an interview with this goose...
Martina Cringeis: how the Swiss Miss put the wince into the Open
January 21, 2006
Fairytale schmairytale - something has to be done to keep this girl away from microphones, writes Martin Johnson.
SHE'S been a long time out of the game, and the world of tennis is all the better for having Martina Hingis back in action. For artistry, she is a Michelangelo in a world of broad-shouldered Amazons hurling buckets of emulsion at each other.
And by no means the least uplifting aspect of her being back on court is that it keeps her out of the TV commentary booth. Unlike her tennis, she has a delivery marginally less interesting - and certainly less informative - than the Speaking Clock.
Three years ago, at the ripe old age of 22, Hingis decided she'd had enough of whacking tennis balls over a net, which just about qualifies as early retirement in the bib-and-rattle environment of women's tennis. She repaired to her Swiss mansion, idling away her time shopping, skiing and riding horses, and her only contact with a tournament she had won three times was popping over to Melbourne every January to giggle some vacuous inanity down a microphone.
However, she found that while her accumulated millions made for a decent enough pension, life without tennis had left a hole of Swiss cheese-like proportions. She took up cooking when someone bought her a book for Christmas, which only served to convince her that wanting to learn how to boil an egg was evidence of near-terminal boredom.
So here she is again, and in ordinary circumstances - women's tennis being a game in which you can break into the top 100 merely by knowing which end of the racket to hit the ball with - a player ranked 349th in the world breezing through her opening two matches in a grand slam event for the concession of only five games would be a fairly remarkable story.
To put that in context, Hingis's present position on the women's list would - were she to suddenly unearth an auntie who lived in Newport Pagnell - make her the British No.6, sandwiched between Sarah Borwell and Emily Webley-Smith. In golfing terms, it's a bit like turning up for your club's monthly medal and watching Tiger Woods pulling his trolley onto the first tee.
Finland's Emma Laine must have felt a bit like that on Thursday. Ranked 264 places ahead of Hingis, she was wiped out 6-1, 6-1 in 52 minutes, despite the match being played in temperatures so close to those in a Finnish sauna that she might have felt like beating herself with twigs during the changeovers.
Hingis's decision to retire was based partly on bodily niggles, but mostly because she was playing the sort of tennis that stretches back to the era of wooden rackets and Teddy Tinling dresses. She felt like someone who'd been entered into the men's singles by mistake, and there were too many days when she looked over the net at an opponent who - despite the dress and the earrings - resembled a linebacker for the Washington Redskins.
Hingis had two options if she wanted to stay in touch with the new breed of power player - take some steroids, or fatten herself up by moving to Australia. Jelena Dokic's father may be a sandwich short of a picnic, but he wasn't too far off the mark in his latest rant about Australians tucking into hot sausages when the temperature hits 40 Celsius.
It was searingly hot on Thursday, and yet the meat pie and French fry stalls were doing more trade than the ice cream stalls. There is a special flavour about the Australian Open, and it is mostly tomato sauce. No wonder Nicole Pratt, one of the local veteran players, has been suggesting that it doesn't need Hercule Poirot to get to the bottom of football's ubiquitous inquiry as to who ate all the pies. As far as she's concerned, it's Australia's portly young female tennis players.
Hingis's Finnish opponent was certainly built as though she might prefer a pie to a roll-mop herring, but although she hit the ball twice as hard as Hingis, she would have been competitive only had the net been a foot lower and the sidelines a yard wider. Questions still remain, however, as to whether Hingis can cope with the girls who hit both hard and accurately.
Hingis is hugely popular in Australia, possibly because of her exquisite tennis, but more likely because she tells them what they want to hear. The on-court interviews at the end of games are truly cringe-worthy, but anyone who pipes up with: "It's just so great to be here in Australia, you know, the fans, you know, are so great, you know, it's like my second home here, you know" is guaranteed a standing ovation. And in this little exercise, Hingis is ranked 348 places above her tennis ranking.
Telegraph, London
Dreams unwind but still it's a state of mind,..I know - Dreams unwind but still it's hard to find - Stevie Nicks...“Marat Safin is a self-tortured genius. He's off the wall with tremendous physical talent. “John Mc Enroe
