Martina Hingis
Swiss tennis star Martina Hingis became the youngest Grand Slam champion and the youngest woman to earn the world’s No. 1 ranking.
Synopsis
Born in Slovakia in 1980, Martina Hingis started playing tennis at a young age. She became the youngest Grand Slam champion in history with her Wimbledon doubles win at age 15, and was the top women's tennis player in the world in the late 1990s. Hingis retired in 2003 due to injuries and again in 2007 following allegations of drug use, before making a successful return to doubles play in 2013.
Profile
Tennis player. Martina Hingis was born on September 30, 1980, in Kosice, Slovakia. Brought up in Switzerland, she began playing tennis at an early age and made her professional debut just after turning 14.
Hingis was 15 years and nine months old when she won the 1996 Wimbledon doubles title with Helena Sukova, making her the youngest Grand Slam champion of all time. The following year, she became the youngest singles Grand Slam tournament winner of the 20th century after her victory in the Australian Open, and the youngest-ever world No. 1 when she replaced the injured Steffi Graf.
Hingis went on to win the Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles championships that year, and defended her Australian singles crown in 1998 and 1999. She also starred in doubles, notching four championships at the Australian Open, two at the French Open and Wimbledon, and one at the U.S. Open. Altogether, she spent 209 weeks in the top spot of the WTA rankings.
Injuries forced her retirement in 2003, but she returned to competitive tennis at the start of 2006 and won the Australian Open mixed doubles title (with Mahesh Bhupathi) and the Italian Open. She received the Laureus World Sports award for comeback of the year in 2006.
In late 2007, Hingis revealed she was under investigation after testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon. Maintaining her innocence, the Swiss star decided to retire again rather than fight the charges. In January 2008, she was suspended for two years by the International Tennis Federation.
Hingis returned to professional competition once again in 2013, this time strictly as a doubles player. She won the 2014 Miami Open alongside Sabine Lisicki, and reached the final of the U.S. Open that year with Flavia Pennetta. In early 2015, she teamed with Leander Paes to claim the mixed doubles championship at the Australian Open.
