Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis
Martina Hingisis a Swiss professional tennis player who is currently ranked world No. 1 in doubles by the WTA. She spent a total of 209 weeks as the singles world No. 1 and has won five Grand Slam singles titles, twelve Grand Slam women's doubles titles, winning a calendar-year doubles Grand Slam in 1998, and five Grand Slam mixed doubles titles; for a combined total of twenty-two major titles. In addition, she has won the season-ending WTA Championships two times...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionTennis Player
Date of Birth30 September 1980
CityKosice, Slovakia
At my first press conference announcing that I was playing the game again they asked me who do you want to play that you haven't played before, and I'm like 'Of course, Maria' because she's a player that's gotten to the top winning Wimbledon at 17. I was just interested. I love playing her and hopefully we'll have many more matches.
Maria's strengths are her serve and that she is mentally tough. I have nothing to lose but to just go out and play my own game against her. I've wanted to play her since going into retirement.
She didn't really give me many chances. I just didn't get many opportunities to really do too much with balls. She doesn't make many errors, which she probably still did in Tokyo. Against her, you don't get away with much.
This year I definitely have more matches than her -- that's a plus. Generally it's easier to play somebody like this first round than later in the draw. I have nothing to lose against Justine.
Although losing against Kim today, it just still gives me so much to look forward to because it was a tight match at the end.
I played some good tennis in Australia and it's good to be back in Tokyo. It's a new week against new opponents and we're all aiming to be the best.
I didn't expect to play her again so soon, and if she gets there it will be great.
I've played a lot of tennis this week and I'm not used to that.
I served very well in the first set, I held my serve and that was key just like yesterday. I won with my heart today. Winning the tiebreak gave me confidence.
I've been trying to work on my whole game, baseline and serve. You have to have a serve to be able to survive today and we'll see if I can bring it on.
Probably I was a little more determined, even more hungry.
Both of us had our ups and downs, but there's so much she can still learn.
Either way it would have been a great match. It was just very difficult conditions and today it was whoever had the stronger head and stayed in the match. One shot here and there and it could have been different.
Beating Lindsay today here under these circumstances on this occasion, it's definitely not easy mentally for me to play her. Now I know that I have the potential to meld with the best.