Hingis can't escape her past

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At each stop along the way, the memories come flooding back. There are friendly smiles from tournament directors, other players — even the familiar faces who restock the towels in the locker room.

They are old acquaintances now, and at each tournament — Australia, Miami, Paris, London — Martina Hingis meets them anew. She was never a particularly accessible player, but for her, the resurrection is about reconnecting.

"When Martina made the decision to stop playing, I respected it because she was plagued by injuries," said Pilot Pen tournament director Anne Worcester, former CEO of the WTA Tour. "But I wasn't alone in thinking she wasn't done yet."

The U.S. Open is one of the last stops on this, her comeback tour, when the final Grand Slam of the year begins today in Queens. Hingis hasn't played at Arthur Ashe Stadium for three years. It seems hard to believe that she was weeks away from turning 17 when she won here in 1997, besting a beaded Venus Williams in the youngest Grand Slam final of the Open era.

Back then she was a buzz saw with a ponytail. Hingis had a .938 winning percentage that year, the best of any player in the 1990s. Few could touch her. Hingis won all the majors in '97 but the French Open, and she reached the final there.

She had plenty of success, but little love from the fans. She was too cocky, a beautiful player to watch with her angles and caginess, but too imperious. She famously called Amelie Mauresmo "half a man" and flippantly downplayed Richard Williams' predictions, however staged. "They always have a big mouth," she said of the Williams family.

Such remarks didn't go over well, and her young career culminated in a disastrous French Open final loss to Steffi Graf in 1999. Just three points from the title, she melted, and the crowd raucously booed.

"I felt misunderstood," Hingis said.

Tennis stopped being fun. The sport was her mother's passion — Martina is named after Navratilova — and Melanie Molitor could fuel only so much of her daughter's career. The power game took the edge off Hingis' strategic mastery. Foot and ankle problems were another issue.

Still, it is hard to imagine this skilled competitor could leave it all behind at the tender age of 22. Hingis sighs before she explains why she left.

"When you are in pain and the ball is out of reach, you just can't get to it," she said. "It's frustrating."

All is forgiven now. The crowds have embraced her much as they did Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati. New York loves a hard-luck story, but more than that, it loves someone with the grit to get beyond the melodrama.

"She's a story in New York," said the USTA's chief executive of professional tennis, Arlen Kantarian, who lives in Rye. "People loved her or hated her, and there are going to be a lot of people cheering for her."

Those cheers are something she has experienced this year in all corners of the world.

"I think this time they understand why I'm winning and the all-around game," Hingis said.

When Hingis dipped her toe back in the pool by playing for the World TeamTennis Sportimes during the summer of 2005, she came back a stronger player. Hingis easily beat the mid-tier players she'd worried about losing to before.

"It gave me confidence I could make it because I really trained hard," Hingis said.

Many of the women on the tour were happy to see her back, and figured she could make it back to top 30 or so. They were unprepared, however, for how completely she would return to top form.

"What I'm seeing is how she is trying to be more aggressive," Elena Dementieva said. "Her game is more solid because she is really enjoying it."

Mauresmo, who lost to Hingis in the Australian Open final in 1999, has now earned two Grand Slam titles of her own. Mauresmo has taken over as the top player in the world, and doesn't hesitate to say that Hingis is a far better player now than when she left.

"The work she did physically was so impressive," Mauresmo said.

Hingis comes to the Open the No. 8 seed, with wins over many of the top players. But along with the success has come losses — namely to Ai Sugiyama in the third round at Wimbledon, and then to No. 19-ranked Ana Ivanovic in the Montreal final.

It was a tough match, but the points earned from reaching the final led to Hingis' first top-10 appearance since 2002. At this point, Hingis has learned the danger of expecting perfection. And the game can use her. A shortage of Williams sisters and an excess of Russians means she returns to a game in need of star power.

"I'm delighted for her and for women's tennis," Worcester said, "because she has charisma." The Journal News