If I’ve always associated Hingis’ comeback to Train’s ‘Drops of Jupiter’, then I feel that what happens afterwards follows more the script laid out in ‘Away From The Sun’, courtesy of 3 Doors Down: ‘It’s down to this, I’ve got to make this life make sense… The feeling’s gone, there’s nothing left to lift me up’.
Ironic, really, how it takes Martina Hingis withdrawing from the one tournament which got away from to prove that this time, she’s for real. She wants Roland Garros, it’s that tournament, the one which was within her grasp in 1999, but then slipped through her fingers. It was the lingering doubt at the back of her mind during her soul-searching 3 years, when she watched others win it, players she had once beaten.
This year, someone else will win it. Probably Justine Henin, who in all due fairness considers it the tournament as being “hers”, and rightfully so. But this year, much like those missing three years, something will be missing.
This year, Hingis won’t be playing. She gave up the one which got away. And that, more than the number of Grand Slams she won, the WTA titles she has, or the records she’s broken, shows she’s one of the best players of all time. It shows she cares, because if she didn’t, she still would have played. She would have ultimately lost, and it wouldn’t have bothered her.
A week or so ago I accused Hingis of not caring- about her career, her status, her game, her fans. Yet I see now I was wrong. Hingis does care, that’s why she withdrew. I’m sure it must have hurt her, deeply, to make that decision. Roland Garros is part of the reason she came back, so to give it up, even if it is just for this year, took courage most players lack. In her first career she played on injury when she probably shouldn’t have, and those lingering injuries were ultimately what forced her off the court. She shouldn’t have to pay twice for her mistakes.
Missing Roland Garros will have its’ consequences. I wouldn’t put too many expectations on the tournaments of her return. She will come back refreshed, but she will also be feeling lost, and maybe a little bit alone. She is not alone, she has her entourage, her fans, yet she will feel something is missing. Roland Garros is a part of her in the sense it’s the tournament she never won. She gave it up, this year, and every tournament she plays between her return and the end of the year will most likely be compared to it. She will probably be wondering ‘what if’, wondering if maybe she should have taken that chance, wondering if maybe, just maybe…
Those questions will be lingering at the back of her mind in her return, and could ultimately affect her confidence, her game. It is one thing to ‘disappear’ for three years and reach the semi-final of the first tournament in your return, it is quite another to walk away from the reason you came back.
She will probably tell herself there are other tournaments, other Grand Slams. She will probably tell herself that in some ways Wimbledon made her the star she is back in 1997, so perhaps it is more fitting for her to return for that tournament. She will tell herself it is not the end of the world, it just feels like it. She will tell herself she will get past it. She will tell herself there is always next year.
Perhaps it is not her injury but more how she recovers from it which will determine the fate of Hingis’ career. Withdrawing from Roland Garros was a huge decision, one which may cost her the shallow fans. But those who fell in love with her game, with what she represents to the world of tennis, will watch her from a distance, wondering what happened to their reluctant rebel, and hoping that by walking away from the French Open, she isn’t also walking away from her world. Roland Garros was ‘the one which got away’. Let’s hope that same expression won’t also apply to the player who changed the world.
