http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.htm...105&sid=4069191

It is a shame that a healthy Martina Hingis is not on tour. While her game can be overpowered, she gives everyone another legitimate threat to face every tournament. It would be nice to see how Hingis could be part of the mix. I don't think she could hit her way through a trail of Jen, Lindsay, Kim, Venus, Serena in a tournament, but she could mix it up with any of them in a given round. She would just be a nice bit of variety to add to the current mix.

Plus she is very entertaining! Speaks her mind, and wears her emotions on her sleeve! It will be a shame if she has truely quit the WTA tour!

To me, an intriguing match to watch would have been Hingis vs. Henin-Hardenne. Justine just seems to have found a way to handle pace a bit more than Hingis was. But both are smart, good moving players capable of playing an opportunistic baseliner all-court game.

Glad to see her gone! What a spoiled, self-centered player with no class! Just rewatch the French Open Final of 1999.

She only won what she did back in 1997 because no other players had their games yet. Steffi and Monica were constantly injured, Williams' weren't developed yet, Jen hadn't rediscovered her game yet and Lindsay was just coming of age.

She did have a good head for the game but once these other players came into their own, she didn't have a chance!

Hingis was the player I loved to hate, so in that context I'll miss not having the chance to root against her anymore. Her petulant, pouty, dismissive demeanor overshadowed her creative game for me, and that "half a man" Mauresmo comment, which I don't beleive she ever apologized for, still sticks in my craw.

As noted above, her act in that French final set a new standard for poor sportsmanship in women's tennis. The one classy, on-court gesture I ever saw from her was giving Serena a big hug after she won her first US Open...too little, too late...

I guess the only other thing I'll miss is seeing what new boyfriend-of-the-month is sitting in her friends' box (so to speak wink )...

It's no secret that I became a big Hingis fan, especially when the sport looked to be overwhelmed by the power hitters. I loved her smarts on court and her wit off court. I was just thinking about her game this weekend and really credit her with giving the big guns trouble, and causing the likes of Serena and Venus and Lindsay to clean up their games and get better. Hingis knows how to play powerhitters, she ruled on Seles and made a mockery of the big hitting Russians for example. Venus and Serena and Lindsay started beating Hingis when they started playing smarter tennis. I will miss her and hope always for a return.

I think that I am more prone to being easier on Martina than others. I just think that she was really young and immature, much like the Williams sisters.

With age she played more doubles and started making friends on the tour. I thought it was really brave of her to get rid of her mom as a coach for that Wimbledon where she lost extremely early- only to ask her mother to return as coach and Martina having to take a dose of humble pie.

I mean, Martinas time on tour spanned the ages 0f 14-21 or so- I think that her maturity would improve and that she would become a better person in the process.

I remember her being a brat during that French Open final- but I also remember the young girl going to her mom and crying about it afterwards- of honestly being hurt by people in the crowd against her- she was so young and made some wrong and immature statements... so I forgive her for that and I really do wish she would come back.

I LOVE HINGIS!!! And yeah she was a brat at the FRENCH OPEN!!! But the truth be told her shot was "IN" and the chair should have over-ruled it! That one horrible call has changed the history of Women's tennis! The Swiss Miss wasn't the same after that French Final! Another thing her outspokeness, was real and actually correct! Plus the FRench fans treated her horribly every year following her loss to GRAF! It made me sick to hear Maryjo Fernandez say "I never saw such horrible treatment to a player" After Serena lost to Justine! EXCUSE ME? It was only 4 yrs ago and continued w/ each apperance afterwards!

she was a brat all right, but so were/are the williams sisters.

hope she comes back...

Jon Wertheim writes in this week's letters column about his missing the Swiss Miss. Funny, he sure loved to give her grief when she was around: Quote:

I'm curious as to whether you'd classify Martina Hingis as an underachiever or an overachiever. I think she falls in between those categories; she overachieved in 1997, and completely underachieved the following five years. Your thoughts and analysis, please.
-- Yosh, Las Vegas

It verges on the absurd to affix the "underachiever" label to someone who won five Slams, even if it did come during a soft spot in women's tennis history. Add in Hingis' doubles success, her dozens of other titles and the seven times she was a losing Grand Slam finalist and she had a truly elite career, abbreviated though it was. No doubt her achievements post-1998 did not keep pace with her gilded 1997, when she came one sloppy match away from winning the Grand Salami. But it's not as though she went Majoli on us after 1997. Remember, she even finished 2000 ranked No.1.

The uncomplicated analysis on Hingis' career: She was a terrifically crafty and tactically brilliant player whose gifts were made obsolete, in a sense, by the brute force her colleagues were applying to the ball. After a period of either willful blindness or rationalization, she gradually reached the irreducible conclusion that she was never going to return to dominance. She had a bum foot and a number of other nagging aches and pains; she had plenty of euros in the bank and, to her everlasting credit, she always had interests outside tennis. Why exactly was she still playing? The answers were slow in coming so she packed it in.

As long as you brought up Hingis, I'm hard-pressed to think of a player whose popularity has risen so dramatically now that she's no longer around. (Sort of like the Swiss version of Jim Morrison.) As a player she divided public opinion and was perceived by many to be the quintessence of the bratty tennis star. Today, she hasn't even been officially retired for a year, and many of us pray that she'll return and grace us again with her clever tennis and singular ability to voice unfiltered opinions

Martina was apparently at the Staples Center last night taking in some of the tennis. Wonder how she feels watching the tournament from the sidelines like that....

Just read online that Martina's in Los Angeles covering the tournament for Eurosport; so she's trying her hand at broadcasting. Interesting. She also says she's very happy in her new life, so good for her.