Martina Hingis: glory in a glimmer

Emma Raducanu stunned the world in September by winning the US Open as an unseeded 18-year-old shattering a host of records. In the records book that the Bromley teenager will be etched in forever, there’s one name that stretches from the front to the back page.

A teenager that, too, stormed the tennis world but in such a manner that we may never see again.

Her period of authority and the agony that followed is a lesson for all that stack the weight of expectation on Raducanu’s barely-grazed shoulders. The tale of Martina Hingis; glory in a glimmer.

Winding the clock back to 1996, Steffi Graff ruled the roost. The German won six of eight Grand Slams despite strong competition from Gabriela Sabatini, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Jennifer Capriati. Also, Monica Seles was making a triumphant return to the sport. Women’s tennis in the late 1990s was bursting with world class talent. So who invited the 16-year-old clutching hands with her mother and a racquet in the other to the party?

Hingis’ invitation to the upper echelon of the tennis game had been awaiting a postage stamp since she was first handed a racquet at the age of two. Her mother and long-time coach, Melanie, was a former tennis professional herself and had named Martina after her native hero Martina Navratilova. A life on the court was in Hingis’ destiny.

The stars aligned quickly. Czechoslovakian-born Hingis put the tennis universe on notice by becoming the youngest player to win a major junior title when she won Roland Garros aged 12. Two years on she joined the WTA Tour, accompanied with braces and a tightly-strapped ponytail - the image of every 14-year-old girl across the world, not a professional tennis player.

Get that clock and bring it back to 1996 and while you’re at it dig out the book of tennis records. Hingis appears on it again, doesn’t she? At 15 years and 282 days old, Hingis became the youngest-ever major titlist winner after she won the Wimbledon doubles. By 1997, she was the guest of honour.

Less a party, more a one-woman act with no intermissions. A relentless show of dominance. She became the youngest Grand Slam singles winner in the 20th century by winning the Australian Open at 16 years and 117 days, without dropping a set, becoming the youngest-ever Australian Open winner in the process. Her victory down under was her 'Moses-moment’ in clearing the path for an unprecedented year of rule over the women’s scene.

Croatian, Iva Majoli, was the only stain in Hingis’ nearly-faultless season as she won Roland Garros in straight sets over Hingis in the final. The French Open remained the only title that alluded the Swiss miss. Crucially, the Suzanne-Lenglen cup cost her not only a career Grand Slam, but a career ‘boxed set’ (winning a title in all three events at the four majors) that only Margaret Court, Navratilova and Doris Hart had achieved.

Vengeance-filled with a baby-faced assassin demeanour, Hingis became the youngest winner at Wimbledon since Lottie Dod in 1887. The US Open was a repeat as she swept aside fellow-prodigy Venus Williams in the final. Hingis ended the year with three Grand Slams, a win rate of 93.2% and 12 WTA tournament titles.

She won a car at Filderstadt, Germany (her first WTA tour win back in 1996) yet, by the time she was a multiple-Grand Slam winner the only purpose it served was housing her countless trophies as she was not legally allowed to drive. Unparalleled levels of success for someone in her tennis-infancy. Like a children’s fable, this chapter came up short.

Turning over to find the pages of her demise that are filled with regret, despair and an overwhelming sense of what if? The teenage sensation, of which she defined the term, later achieved two consecutive Australian Open’s, but would not win another Grand Slam after her 1999 triumph.

In the 1999 final at Roland Garros she had unravelled. From then on, her layers of invincibility were peeled back. After being a set and two love up (6-4, 3-1) over Graf her grip on the title she most craved slipped away and with it the admiration of the tennis world. Riling up the French crowd with a sense of arrogance and entitlement, her meltdown was infamous.

Success in the doubles remained, but with three-straight Aussie Open final defeats her time at the top of the women’s singles game was at an untimely end. Aged 22, she retired in February 2003 with ankle problems.

Had it not been for injuries would she have eclipsed Court’s record of 24 Grand Slams? It is impossible to answer. The Williams sisters went onto dominate the landscape just as Hingis would have entered her prime and there is no telling whether she may have peaked early.

The counter-argument to that is her success in the doubles. As they are less strenuous her ankle could remain healthy. Her shot selection, finesse, anticipation and court knowledge all remained and that could carry her game. She was as delicate on the court as you would expect a 16-year-old to be off it. She was so intelligent that, at times, it was believed she could play in the dark. In spells where inconsistency creeped in, that is where her partner would come in and settle it for her. This combination produced a CV that few can compare to.

A year on from the blazing trail that was 1997, Hingis achieved a career Grand-Slam in the doubles becoming the youngest-ever and fourth to do so in history. In the same period, she was only the third women to hold the no.1 rank in the singles and doubles simultaneously.

Following retirements in 2003 and again in 2007, her return in 2015 (after being inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2013) was solely to extend her supremacy in the doubles. And that is what she did.

Adding two US Open titles with the SW19 crown and a fairytale victory in the Australian Open, Hingis finally bowed out of the sport with 13 Grand Slam doubles titles to combine with seven in the mixed doubles. Ending with 114 career titles, 25 of which were majors.

Hailing from Switzerland she paved the way for Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka to represent the country on the biggest stage. She transcended beyond tennis becoming the first female athlete to be on the cover of GQ, whilst being the highest-paid female athlete for five consecutive years.

Although short, her stint at the top was tyrannical. 16-years-old with the eyes of the world on you, under the sporting microscope that celebrates and lambasts in the same breath.

For Raducanu et al, there are lessons to be learnt from Hingis’ chronicle. The gift of otherworldly talent and success comes with an expiration date. A tag that oft comes along sooner than expected, so seize it.