Hingis Comes Down From the Mountain

You can’t see the signs in the rankings, where Martina Hingis still holds the top spot.

The indication that things aren’t what they once were for her comes from little things like Friday’s match at the estyle.com Classic, a match in which she had extra incentive.

Now, Hingis does not only want what people like the Williams sisters and Mary Pierce have. On this day, she wanted what Amy Frazier had: the right to claim a victory in their most recent match, and the championship in the Manhattan Beach event, which Frazier won in 1994 and Hingis has never won.

Even if Hingis did get revenge for last week’s Frazier upset with a 6-2, 6-1 victory on Friday, the fact that this quarterfinal match had any meaning at all shows that Hingis doesn’t have that elite status anymore, that she is close to becoming another antelope in the herd.

You can hear it in her quotes too, as when she discussed her goals.

“Consistency,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about. You should know what’s the best for you and how you should practice and keep on moving with the rest of the field.”

The rest of the field? It wasn’t too long ago that she was all by herself. In 1997 she won 12 tournaments--including three of the four Grand Slams--and lost only five times in 80 matches. She was about to make the WTA her personal playground.

Then she got passed, first by Lindsay Davenport, and lately by the Williams sisters, who are threatening to turn the tour into their own tag-team match.

The player to beat right now is Venus Williams, the winner of three consecutive tournaments, including Wimbledon.

Her only shortcoming at the moment is that she hasn’t played enough events to accumulate the points necessary for the top ranking.

Hingis can see that Williams already enjoys the real benefit of being No. 1. Hingis knows what it is because she used to have it herself.

“You don’t always play the best matches of your life, but you still win because you’re so confident,” she said.

Now she is on the other side, where she can play her best and it’s not enough.

She used every bit of resourcefulness in her body against Venus in the Wimbledon quarterfinals and she still couldn’t win.

Women’s tennis is all about power now. Hingis tried to bulk up recently, and that didn’t work.

“I had too much power and couldn’t really play my game,” she said earlier in the week. “I didn’t know what to do with it.”

She might not look too muscle-bound, but she assures, “For me, it’s a lot.”

Now she’s back to doing it her way, with anticipation and precision shot-making.

“I have to play my game--not a power game, which I was trying to do for a while,” she said. “But I realized I can’t do it. I’ve been able to beat those players anyway. I just have to play my game.”

It’s been good enough to win four tournaments this year and to reach the final of the Australian Open and the semifinals of the French.

But if she can’t win the U.S. Open, it will be the first time since 1996 that she didn’t win at least one Grand Slam event.

“You can’t have every year or every tournament. It’s almost impossible,” she said. “There’s so many great players out there. Just little things can change and turn around.”

If anything, this newfound vulnerability suits her well. She’s not as haughty. In fact, she’s turning into one of the most insightful people on the tour, and she doesn’t turn 20 until Sept. 30.

“I think, to lose, that helps you quite a bit,” Hingis said. “Because if you keep winning, you think that’s going to be good enough for the next one and the next one, even if you don’t play well.

“It just comes with the time. It shows a little bit later, that if you don’t do as much, if you don’t play as well, that players start beating you that are not supposed to beat you. That’s kind of a wake-up call.”

Hingis faces Serena Williams in the semifinals today. That’s not a wake-up call, that’s like a dump truck barreling through the bedroom.

“I just have to play [the way] I played today,” Hingis said. “It’s just one or two levels up. Maybe three.”

You know, up where Hingis used to be.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].

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HINGIS

ADVANCES

Martina Hingis avenged a loss to Amy Frazier last week with an easy quarterfinal victory. Page 4

TODAY’S

SEMIFINALS

Hingis vs.

Serena Williams,

Dementieva vs. Davenport