Hingis Gets Help From Old Friend

CARLSBAD —  Monica Seles isn’t exactly Obi-Wan Kenobi, but around the youth-dominated women’s tennis tour, going on 28, she practically qualifies as a learned elder to Martina Hingis.

Hingis, 20, has long sought the advice of, well, older women. She used to play doubles with Jana Novotna and took to comparing 33-year-old Nathalie Tauziat to a professor.

With no Grand Slam titles in more than 2 1/2 years, and a first-round Wimbledon loss, desperate times require desperate measures.

So Seles was consulted before Hingis’ opening match Tuesday, a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Lilia Osterloh at the Acura Classic.

“Now, I’ve gotten older. I’ve been on the tour for seven years,” Hingis said. “I talked to Monica briefly. It gets tougher and tougher. I never would have thought it--the red thin line--it’s so close to being up or down. The higher you climb, the higher you can fall. It’s very important. I don’t want to fall. I want to stay up there.”

This is a pattern for Hingis. Carlsbad is becoming the second stop on her restoration tour after crushing Wimbledon losses. She crashes out of Wimbledon, spends time in Europe putting herself back together and La Costa usually is the next on-court test for Hingis.

Two years ago, it was Jelena Dokic (as well as some self-imposed damage) who knocked Hingis out of the first round at Wimbledon. This time, it was Virginia Ruano Pascual and tendinitis in her lower back combining to hand her another first-round loss at Wimbledon.

You have to admire Hingis for at least trying to do something to reverse her slide. On Tuesday, she spoke about magnetic therapy and yoga and you wondered if chanting with the monks was next on the list.

Though ranked No. 1 in the world--this is her 199th week at the position--she has not won a title since February. The eight-tournament drought has included losses to Venus Williams, Kim Clijsters, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Amelie Mauresmo and Jennifer Capriati. Mauresmo and Capriati have each defeated her twice in this stretch.

So after Wimbledon, she traveled to Seefeld, Austria, and spent a week at a wellness center/resort in the mountains.

“To get back mentally, spiritually and physically back together,” she said, laughing.

Her second-round opponent, Osterloh, ranked No. 54, represented an ideal opponent--a hard-hitting baseliner not blessed with enough variety to be truly threatening.

“I think I played better than I expected in the first set,” Hingis said. “It was the same situation as I was two years ago when I lost in the first round at Wimbledon. I had a lot of time to practice and really take time to get in the best shape possible.”

Hingis defeated Osterloh in 61 minutes, converting on her fourth match point at La Costa Resort & Spa. Also advancing in second-round matches, winning in straight sets, were the sixth-seeded Tauziat and No. 7 Seles. In the first round, qualifier Alexandra Stevenson of San Diego defeated Kristina Brandi, 7-6 (5), 6-0.

The winner between Stevenson and No. 14 Amy Frazier will face Hingis in the round of 16. Frazier, of course, had the best win of her career here last year when she beat Hingis in the quarterfinals.

For now, Hingis is pleased to be playing pain free.

Anna Kournikova’s long-awaited singles return was inauspicious. Her groundstrokes were erratic and she lost to a player who needed medical treatment for her right foot.

Nicole Pratt of Australia, ranked No. 74, defeated the ninth-seeded Russian, 6-7 (1), 6-1, 6-3, in 2 hours 6 minutes, winning the final three games in their second-round match. Pratt said she was hampered by sharp pain in her Achilles’ tendon. It was her first victory against Kournikova in four tries.

“Anna was a little hesitant with her movements,” said Pratt, 17-17 in 2001. “That was the big difference. I think she was holding back a little bit on her shots.”

Kournikova had been off the tour since February because of a stress fracture in her left foot.

Kournikova revealed she had surgery on the foot in April. She denied British tabloid reports that she recently married Detroit Red Wing star Sergei Fedorov.

“For the first match I played, it was not so bad,” she said. “This was the best day I’ve had since I started practicing two weeks ago. . . . I had no real pain but it’s really sore [now]. I was really happy to be out there, to be moving again.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

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