A murmur of excitement swept through the elegant town hall when it was revealed that Switzerland’s Martina Hingis, one of the authentic greats of the modern game, will return to play her first top-flight singles match for nearly eight years in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas World Group play-off against Poland on Saturday.
As she prepared for her first Fed Cup tie for 17 years, Hingis beamed the huge smile which so illuminated tennis in her heyday and exchanged a laugh across the room with her opponent on Saturday, Agnieszka Radwanska, who grew up idolising the 34-year-old Swiss. This will be some comeback.
Half a lifetime after her elegant domination of tennis in her late teens, Hingis has been sweet-talked back into singles combat by Switzerland’s team captain, Heinz Guenthardt. He looked at his side’s injury crisis and asked Hingis – who decided to make a Fed Cup return to qualify for next year’s Olympics – if she would consider not just playing in the doubles, which she has been doing with considerable success on the WTA Tour with Sania Mirza, but also in singles alongside the flying Timea Bacsinszky. Hingis took a night to sleep on her decision but concluded that it was worth taking this “extraordinary” step.
“The comfort zone is there for me to play doubles,” she said. “Obviously, I’ve played very well in the last five weeks winning three titles, the confidence is there but singles is a different ball game. “But Heinz has the trust in me so I was like ‘okay, let’s go for it, let’s try’ and hopefully I can make at least a game of it and earn a point for Switzerland.”
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