With a Magic Racket, Hingis Comes of Age

MELBOURNE, Australia — Martina Hingis claimed her first Grand Slam championship as if it were her birthright, becoming the youngest winner of a major title in 110 years by breezing past Mary Pierce, 6-2, 6-2, today in the Australian Open final.

Displaying a dazzling array of shots, the 16-year-old named after Martina Navratilova fulfilled a lifetime of expectations and training by overwhelming the 1995 champion.

So light on her feet while Pierce plodded heavily, Hingis showed off all her precocious talent with overheads, lunging volleys and ground strokes that clipped the lines.

From the first two points she won, both on overheads, to the final forehand she ripped into an open court to complete a run of 10 consecutive points, Hingis exhibited a variety and maturity far beyond her years.

A few days after she fell off a horse named Magic Girl, Hingis played as if that ought to be her nickname. Of all her shots against Pierce, none captured that quality more than a backhand drop shot Hingis flicked from the baseline that hit the net cord and trickled over to give her a 3-0 lead in the first set.

Though Hingis started off nervously, fending off three break points in the opening game, she yielded only two points in winning the next four games to take a 5-0 lead.

Pierce finally held serve and broke Hingis, but the Swiss teen broke back and breezed through the second set to close out the match in 59 minutes and complete a perfect run through the tournament without dropping a set.

“It’s tough when the person on the other side of the net is there for every ball, making great shots off my great shots,” said Pierce, 22. “It’s weird because you don’t think she’s going to get to some balls, and she does and hits great shots.”

Hingis’ $434,000 winner’s prize, plus the $90,000 she won by taking the doubles title with Natasha Zvereva, put her over the $2-million mark in career earnings.

“Next time I have to play mixed doubles so that I can win that too,” Hingis told the crowd. “But maybe I should give someone else a chance to win another one.”

Hingis laughed, as did the crowd, aware now that she’s capable now of winning every event she enters.

She said she owed a special thanks to her mother.

“When I was 2 years old, she gave me a racket, and I just played,” Hingis said.

Hingis cavorted through this tournament with hardly a care, as though she knew she would win from the start. She whizzed on in-line skates down the corridors of the National Tennis Center, along the beaches and through the park. She went jumping on horseback and laughed about her tumble to the grass.

She didn’t wilt in the heat like the other top players, and she moved up in the rankings from No. 4 to No. 2.

“If she keeps playing the way she’s playing, and keeps improving, she’s definitely going to be someone at the top and tough to beat,” Pierce said.

Hingis is three months younger than was Monica Seles when she won the 1990 French Open. The only younger player to win a major tournament was 15-year-old Charlotte “Lottie” Dod, who won Wimbledon in 1887, when tennis was played in a way that would seem slow motion today.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Champions of Youth

Youngest women’s winners of Grand Slam singles titles:

* Australian Open--Martina Hingis, 1997, 16 years, 4 months

* French Open--Monica Seles, 1990, 16 years, 6 months

* Wimbledon--Charlotte “Lottie” Dod, 1887, 15 years, 10 months

* U.S. Open--Tracy Austin, 1979, 16 years, 8 months