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After the Swiss announcement on Friday, made amid some
excitement in a provincial Polish town hall, that she will play
her first tour-level singles for eight years against Agnieszka
Radwanska in the World Group playoff, Hingis declared: “I
wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t think I could help the team.”
Being paired with the world number nine Radwanska should, in
theory, be like being chucked to the lions for someone who has
retired twice and concentrated purely on doubles while
occasionally messing around in exhibitions and low-rent league
singles.
Yet as Radwanska, who idolized the five-times grand slam
champion as a youngster and whose similarly clever, elegant game
will make Saturday’s clash one for tennis purists and
geometrists, smiled: “You are talking about Martina. She’s still
dangerous.”
She should know, having lost a one-set exhibition in India with
the 34-year-old Hingis in November.
This, though, is very different. After Hingis’s brilliant recent
doubles performances with Sania Mirza, winning three tournaments
in five weeks, Swiss Fed Cup captain Heinz Guenthardt asked her
about returning to the fray.
She needed no persuading as she has to play to qualify for next
year’s Olympics where, she explained, she would happily partner
either Roger Federer or Stan Wawrinka in the mixed doubles.
The last time Hingis saw Fed Cup action, she took on the grand
Spanish duo of Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Conchita Martinez in
the 1998 final and almost prevailed single handedly, winning
both singles rubbers.
Her team mate tomorrow, Timea Bacsinszky, remembers: “I watched
that final on television, while eating a croque monsieur.” Now
she can hardly credit she is playing alongside her.
When an injury crisis developed, Guenthardt asked Hingis to
consider the singles as well as doubles. “Whooah! That’s
different!” she responded, before asking for a night to sleep on
“a tough decision”. “Okay, let’s go for it,” she told him the
next day.
She is pencilled in for three rubbers in two days. Too exacting,
perhaps? Well, she looked in brilliant shape in training, as did
those sweet volleys.
“I’m excited,” beamed Hingis. “They way I’ve been playing, I
deserve to be here -- and I have nothing to lose.”
(Editing by Toby Davis)
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