A Swiss Miss? No, She's a Big Hit

By JULIE CART

Jan. 14, 1997 12 AM PT

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Unexpected surprises on the women’s tennis tour usually involve unearthed arrest records or the publication of compromising photographs. It is in this context that the blossoming of Martina Hingis as the sport’s next star has been greeted with a collective sigh from tennis executives. At last, a well-adjusted tennis player.

Hingis, who just turned 16, is newsworthy not only for her remarkable rise in the rankings--starting 1996 at No. 20 and ending at No. 4--but also because she’s an adolescent who’s so relentlessly normal.

Teenage burnout is an established pattern in women’s tennis, and so far, despite an ambitious schedule, the Swiss player has avoided it. A more accurate test of Hingis’ mental and physical durability began Monday with the start of another tennis season at the Australian Open, which she opened with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over Barbara Rittner.

In October 1994, Hingis and former Californian Venus Williams took advantage of a closing window of opportunity to turn pro at 14, causing a mighty backlash and a torrent of cradle-robbing criticism.

The tour cringed, already sensitive to the charge and familiar with the pattern. Women’s tennis launches its teenagers professionally, then observes their progress from behind spread fingers. Even the most optimistic waited for the inevitable embarrassment.

It didn’t come from the youngsters though. Hingis was voted most impressive newcomer her first year on tour. Then last season, she punctuated her rise by taking Steffi Graf to five sets before losing in the final of the Chase Championships in New York. She also became the youngest tennis player, male or female, to earn $1 million in prize money.

Hingis’ is not a success story measured by accomplishments, so much as by what she has not done. She hasn’t blown up.

“It was a bombardment for many months after the rules change [in 1994],” said Anne Person Worcester, CEO of the WTA Tour. “And yet the two players we were heavily criticized about were Venus Williams, who kept her word to play only six tournaments, and Martina, who has come through so well. She’s got charisma. She’s got that Cheshire cat grin. She’s not there yet, but she’s on the verge of superstardom.”

Hingis’ arrival as a pro set off all the usual alarm bells because not only was she an accomplished junior player with an surprisingly mature game, but she was also coached by her mother. A “tennis parent,” observers hissed, as if a truly well balanced tennis player could only spring immaculately conceived from a Florida academy.

In the weird reasoning of teen tennis, a prodigy’s projected success is gauged in inverse proportion to the profile held by the child’s parents. From the first moment that Jim Pierce bellowed instructions to his daughter to “kill” her opponent--it was understood that he wasn’t kidding--Mary Pierce’s career has been speeding headlong into a blind curve.

In the same way, the fact that few on tour have ever met Lindsay Davenport’s parents is seen as assurance that whatever her on-court fortunes, she will at least remain a “normal human” off it.

Melanie Hingis Zogg put a tennis racket in her daughter’s hand when the girl was only 2, and put her in tournaments at 6. Although now a Swiss citizen, Martina was born in Kosice, in what was then Czechoslovakia, and her future was ordained when she was named--even before she was born--after another famous Czech tennis star, Martina Navratilova.

After she turned pro, the tennis world waited for the horror stories to seep out about parental abuse, but none did. Hingis appeared to be well brought up and well coached. There was minor criticism about Hingis’ powder puff first serve, but Melanie Zogg defused it by saying her daughter was too young to begin a weightlifting program to develop her shoulder.

If Hingis bridles under her mother’s tutelage, there is no outward evidence of it. They are inseparable on tour. Martina customarily refers to her mother as, “My coach, my mother and my best friend.”

Melanie Zogg has a simple philosophy.

“Yes, I am Martina’s coach, but I am also her mother,” she says. “There is only one way: I am always with her for as long as she is young, trying to keep everything normal.”

An accomplished junior player herself, Zogg alone coaches her daughter. Hingis worked briefly with Brad Gilbert at the end of last year. The sport’s newest guru was helpful, Hingis said, but his suggestions only served to reinforce her belief in the correctness of her mother’s teachings.

“Everything he said, she has already told me,” Hingis said. “That tells me my mother is a good coach.”

Even with the physical maturation she has undergone in her two years on tour, Hingis still does not lift weights and trains only 1 1/2 hours a day. She is encouraged to participate in other sports and she skis, plays soccer and basketball, and runs with her German shepherd.

Her game is developing into a fascinating blend of baseline prowess and spins, slices and a deadly drop shot. Hingis is tactically years ahead of her peers, fearless on court and moves with the light feet of a dancer.

Her youthful classmates have not fared as well. The reclusive Williams has been a non-factor. She played only five tour events last season and is ranked 204th. Williams is expected to play something approaching a full schedule this year and--if she can ever be judged apart from her bellicose father--may become an interesting player.

Anna Kournikova, 15, is a frightening study in precocity. Born in Russia and tanned in Florida, Kournikova is rushing pell-mell to grow up. Whether it’s because she’s dating a professional hockey player, wearing saucy tennis clothes or widely quoted while off on a bragging jag, Kournikova was the player most talked about by other players. She also lost in the first round of the Australian Open Monday to Amanda Coetzer.

Kournikova is about as similar to Hingis as Lolita was to Shirley Temple. Kournikova’s shameless packaging and swaggering attitude--carried off against a background of little achievement on the tour--has made her a player others love to beat.

Hingis, on the other hand, is still a kid just out of braces. Perhaps it is her age that has brought out the big-sister benevolence rarely seen on tour. Hingis has been the object of an unusual number of compliments. And the players offering them appear to be sincere.

Graf, from whom compliments seldom flow, has been generous about Hingis’ future.

“It’s a very talented, intelligent game she’s playing out there,” Graf said. “She knows exactly what to do. She is very quick, takes the pace for the opponent, plays sharp angles. No matter how hard you play her, she takes your speed and hits with incredible depth. Her down-the-lines are probably the best in tennis. You don’t see a lot of players play that kind of game.

“As fast as she’s going, she’s definitely the one to look out for, no question. The way she’s been playing, without being afraid, with the freshness--I definitely see her as being The One.”

Monica Seles, who suffered her worst professional loss at the hands of Hingis in the final at Oakland last November, said, “She has an unbelievable sense of the court and she is very mature. There’s no doubt about it, she’s going to be a force in women’s tennis.”

Hingis has already experienced the dizzying arc that can be traced by a career in the public eye: from ingenue to fierce competitor to slumping upstart, all in the span of months. Exploration of her private life has also gone from the hackneyed Swiss-miss puff pieces to the more probing sort.

Stories are emerging about her father, about whom little is known. Swiss newspapers recently reported Karol Hingis is living in near poverty in Slovakia, earning $200 a month as the caretaker of a tennis facility. Melanie Hingis Zogg reportedly recently sent a letter to her ex-husband, informing him that his child support checks would no longer be needed.

There are reports too that the marriage between Melanie Hingis and the rarely seen Swiss computer specialist Andreas Zogg is all but finished. She has been traveling in the company of a Swiss sportswriter, who has told colleagues that he’s considering quitting his newspaper job to manage Hingis’ career. Denials to the contrary, the journalist is a fixture in the friends’ box when Hingis plays, sitting behind Melanie Zogg, furiously taking notes.

As scandals go, Hingis herself is still a lightweight. The worst about her at the moment is that she’s gaining a reputation as a thrower of both rackets and tantrums. How she manages to behave with such petulance and still remain so likable is part of her appeal.

Sprawled across a couch deep in the maze of Madison Square Garden an hour after losing to Graf at the Chase Championships, Hingis looked terribly young in her oversized Knicks’ T-shirt. Speaking with animation about riding her horse, Montana; her interest in meeting Dennis Rodman, and the learning curve of life on the tour, Hingis does seem well adjusted.

“Somehow, it’s not like I expected,” she said. “I thought it would be easier. You see all the players and the tournaments, but [until you’re on the tour] you never see what’s behind everything. Traveling is difficult--changing cities, changing climates, changing surfaces. . . . As a junior, I always prepared for just one big tournament. Now, there’s one every week.

“But I also didn’t expect to make friends like I have. I know there are some players who are jealous, it’s natural. But most of us get along fine and we have fun. People want to know if I miss a normal life, but to me this is normal.”

That Hingis remains normal is of great interest to the WTA Tour, but few will publicly acknowledge the weight Hingis carries on her scrawny shoulders, especially with the frequent injury absences of Seles and Graf. Seles, for instance, is not entered in the Australian Open.

“I’m aware of not hanging it all on Martina Hingis,” Worcester said. “The future of the women’s game is in capable hands for reasons other than Martina Hingis. But we’re happy to have her.”

And relieved.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Rising Star

Highlights of Martina Hingis’ second season on the WTA Tour:

JANUARY

* Quarterfinalist at Australian Open. Lost to Amanda Coetzer.

FEBRUARY

* Semifinalist at Tokyo. Lost to Iva Majoli.

MARCH

* Winner at Prostejov, Czech Republic (not a Tier I event). Beat Barbara Paulus.

MAY

* Quarterfinalist at Hamburg. Lost to Mary Pierce.