Mighty Martina
Hingis scrambles past Mauresmo 6-2, 6-3
Posted: Friday February 12, 1999 12:42 PM
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Hingis: "I just played some awesome tennis and I just hope I can continue playing like this all year" AP |
MELBOURNE, Australia (CNN/SI) -- Martina Hingis dominated a matchup of contrasting styles to capture a third straight Australian Open title.
Hingis showed her all-around court mastery in turning back the muscular and stubborn Amelie Mauresmo, securing a fifth Grand Slam title in the process.
Mauresmo again unleashed the power she displayed throughout the Open, but Hingis countered with an inspired finesse in the 6-2, 6-3 triumph.
The women stood in marked contrast to each other, Hingis looking as if she were posing for a fashion magazine, wearing a tailored dress and adorned with an expensive gold watch and diamond earrings. Mauresmo looked as if she'd just come off a public court, wearing shorts and a tank-top that revealed her sculpted shoulders.
And their games reflected a similar contrast in styles, Hingis' based on elegance, Mauresmo's on raw power.
Even before the struggle through all the match points, Hingis came up with three brilliant shots to come back from love-40 and take a 5-3 lead to set herself up for a victory that brought her $427,770.
"I just played some awesome tennis," Hingis said. "I hope I can continue playing like this all year."
Mauresmo, who won $213,885, left undaunted and ready to take on Hingis, or anyone else, again for another major title.
"First I'm going to learn how to deal with a Grand Slam final," said Mauresmo, who won the junior titles at Wimbledon and the French Open and knows she has the game to win on any surface. "It's a lot of pressure, a lot of tension. For the first time, I don't think it was too bad.
"I've worked for this for all my young career. Emotionally it's very intense."
Facing the break at love-40, Hingis produced a backhand drop from behind the baseline that even the speedy Mauresmo couldn't catch.
"That was so lucky," Hingis said. 'At that point, I was like, OK, take it."
Hingis brought the game back to deuce with the help of two unforced errors by Mauresmo.
But Mauresmo, the unseeded 19-year-old from France playing in her first major final, then drilled a forehand deep that almost sped by Hingis. Hingis reached out and caught up to it, and flicked it back almost from behind her back to pass a stunned Mauresmo.
The Frenchwoman then volleyed another apparent winner crosscourt, only to see Hingis sprint after it and send a forehand pass down the line.
"When you go 40-love down," Hingis said, "you just have to go for it."
Serving to stay in the match now, Mauresmo opened with an ace, but soon found herself in a duel of wills with the 18-year-old Hingis that lasted through eight deuces.
"Today I put my mind together and came up great," Hingis said.
Perhaps no one in women's tennis can match Hingis in her mental approach to the game, the way she varies her strokes, keeps opponents off-balance and breaks them down point by point.
She showed all that in closing out this match, beginning with a forehand approach volley crosscourt that Mauresmo couldn't touch.
But Mauresmo has plenty of weapons of her own, from the most powerful topspin backhand perhaps ever seen in women's tennis, to a formidable forehand and an impressive resolve to keep fighting.
Every time Hingis seemed to have her beat, in match point after match point, Mauresmo would not quit. Fearlessly, she drilled deep backhands and forehands, went for the angles, kept the pressure on Hingis.
Finally, though, Hingis found her opportunity on the seventh match point and ripped a running forehand that Mauresmo volleyed into the net.
"The last game was just never-ending," Hingis said. "She had match points against her in the first match, so you can see how she came back. She hit some great points on match point. I was like, OK, miss it or something. Some girls would probably be shaky, but she just went for it.
"I made the big points. This time I was just better. I was more experienced, and that helped me a lot."
Mauresmo, whose ranking will jump from No. 29 to No. 18, showed the potential in beating No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in the semis and stunning Hingis with some shots in the final to make a lasting imprint on the sport.
Martina Navratilova revolutionized women's tennis nearly two decades ago when she put herself through a rigorous training program that turned her into a lean, mean muscular athlete.
Mauresmo has taken that attitude to a new level, pumping iron in the gym three times a week, building up her upper arms and shoulders to the point where she has the strength to wallop one-handed topspin backhands as no other women ever have.
Hingis is almost the opposite, relying not on muscle but on agility, anticipation and variety of shots. She beat Mauresmo from the baseline and at the net, showing off the kind of volleying that has also made a Grand Slam doubles champion.
As impressed as everyone else might have been by Mauresmo's backhands, Hingis wasn't
"I think I have a better one," Hingis said. "Hers is one-handed, mine is double, but it doesn't beat me. If I see a girl on the other side with a one-handed backhand, that is usually a big weakness."
In the men's final on Sunday, Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov plays Sweden's Thomas Enqvist.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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