October 29, 2024

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Singapore will be Hingis’s swan song

Hingis

According to several Swiss media outlets, Martina Hingis will retire at the end of this week’s WTA Tour Finals in Singapore.

The 37-year-old, who is Phase 3 of a career that began in the mid 1990s as a young teenager, had hinted after the US Open that this might be her last season.

It appears the Spanish media outlet Marca was the first to break the news, earlier today, although there were no comments from Hingis herself.

According to 20 Minuten, it’s official.

When Singapore is done, so is the Swiss Miss.

“It’s the right time for me,” Hingis is quoted as saying. “It’s better to stop at the peak and I can say I had a very good time. The successes I’ve had over the past three years have been great and it’s going to be hard to beat anyway. And my priorities change, too, of course.”

Stellar career, in three acts

Hingis confirmed it herself on Facebook, after she and partner Yung-Jan Chan won their first match in Singapore Thursday night.

No matter what happens in Singapore, where Hingis  and Chan are the No. 1 seeds as the doubles portion of the event gets under way, she would retire at No. 1.

She already has nine titles this year with Chan.

Hingis retired from singles in 2002, when she was just 22.

Hingis has six Grand Slam mixed doubles titles over the last three seasons. (Stephanie Myles/Tennis.Life)

It didn’t last long. She returned in 2006, but retired again in 2007, after a positive test for cocaine she said she was innocent of, but didn’t have the will to fight in the appeals process.

She had gotten back into the top 10 in singles, no mean feat.

In 2010, she actually played the Wimbledon “seniors” event with Anna Kournikova – an unfair fight, if ever there was one.

But by the summer of 2013 – still only 32, Hingis was back – purely as a doubles specialist.

Hingis and Kournikova teamed up at the Wimbledon “ladies’ invitational” in 2010, generally a competition reserved for much older, long-retired players. It wasn’t a fair fight. (Stephanie Myles/Tennis.Life)

A few months later, in Miami, Hingis teamed up with Germany’s Sabine Lisicki to win the big Premier 5 event. She also was helping to coach Lisicki at the time.

According to the WTA Tour website, Hingis has 43 singles titles, 64 more in doubles, and seven Grand Slam titles in mixed – six of them in the last three season.

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