By Matt Cronin, Special to FoXSports.com
Martina Hingis can no longer walk through the gates at Wimbledon, the historic locale where she won the 1997 title as a bright-eyed, soft-handed 16-year-old. The suspended five-time Grand Slam champion can't waltz through the entryways at the Australian Open (which she won three times), the U.S. Open (one win), or the French Open (where she fell apart twice in the finals).She's in limbo, living through a two-year suspension for having cocaine in her system at Wimbledon in 2007. Hingis claims she's completely retired with no chance of returning after her sentence is served out.
She still proclaims her innocence, saying she has no idea how the banned substance entered her system, but gave up the court battle after losing her appeal in front of the International Tennis Federation in December 2007. Her suspension will last through October of 2009 and by then, she will be 29, not an age when she wants to start a third comeback.
Hingis is concerned that her reputation has been tainted and her legacy tarnished. Despite having the numbers to grant her an easy entry into the Hall of Fame, she may not end up being nominated, given the gravity of the charge.
But there was no way she was going to keep fighting the accusation, as she felt bled dry by lawyers and had nowhere else to turn.
"I felt like I had a no-win situation," Hingis told FoxSports.com at the Esurance Tennis Classic in Tiburon, Calif., where she played an exhibition and gave clinics. "I wish today I still know what happened, how it got into my system. I feel like I'm innocent, but I can't prove any different. I could have spent millions. The expenses of the lawyer were there. Three months later, you know it was costing me $1,000 dollars an hour.
"Plus it was at the same time of (the doping accusations on) Marion Jones and the Tour de France, and I said, 'OK (I'll let it go). The first step (of the appeal) is three months, and if you keep going stage to stage, the suspension would be over anyway by the time it finished. Maybe the rules will change and my case will help change the rules. I have to take it as it is and think about what I can do now."What exactly she will do long-term is hard to tell. She is clearly not emotionally recovered from her suspension. She's the first No. 1-ranked player to have been banned for doping, let alone the first all-time great. Even as a 16-year-old, she was conscious of her place in the game and concerned about what others thought of her. She's not one of those athletes, who, when in trouble, can figuratively stick her finger up high in the air and say screw the fans, the media, my peers and everyone else who thinks badly of me.
Hingis was taken aback when told that there were some people in tennis who were surprised that she threw up her hands and walked away. They say by walking away, it appeared that she was admitting guilt without actually bothering to offer an apology.
She cannot believe that anyone would believe she was juiced up at that Wimbledon, given that she had been defeated by the journeywoman Laura Granville in the third round, a player whom even on a B-Level day, Hingis should have been able to take care of handily.
Neither Hingis nor her lawyers could find a way to prove her innocence.
But that doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of things, as her second comeback — which began in 2006 after a nearly three-year layoff due to burnout — was essentially over anyway. After a good 2006 and a solid start to 2007 when she gagged to Kim Clijsters in the Australian Open quarterfinals — a match she admits she should have won — and then won Tokyo over Ana Ivanovic, she mentally and physically began to fray.
She had become romantically linked to Czech player Radek Stepanek and was putting more energy into making that union work than into her tennis.
"You have a relationship and you are trying to get that going, and then Radek was injured and I tried to spend a lot of time with him and I put myself on the side," she said. "He had a hard time there and couldn't play and was going to doctors and then re-injured himself in Marseille and I was there with him.
"I didn't spend enough time practicing because I felt that I won Tokyo and I felt — that's not going away! I beat all the top players again, got to No. 6 and although I never won the French Open, I was thinking, 'What more was out there for me?' From there, it was difficult to get back into it. I had all the mental confidence, but the hunger was more toward other things. Tennis wasn't the priority anymore. (Radek) became more important."
One of the most informative and honest interviews I've seen from Hingis in a while and although she claims her life on tour is very much over and done with, that last quote makes me think otherwise.
Interesting to hear her talk so candidly about her relationship with Radek Stepanek as well, she tends to stay away from that subject.
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