A Short History of Martina Hingis

Basic Profile

Martina Hingis was born Sept. 30, 1980 in Kosice/Slovakia.
She is 5"6, weighs 115 pounds, and has blue eyes
She began playing tennis at the age of 3.
She got her name after the legendary Martina Navratilova.
Her father, Karol Hingis, gave her the first tennis raquet.
He was number 19 in the tennis rankings in Czechoslovakia.
She was also trained by her mother, Melanie Molitor, who was a former tennis champion.
At the age of 5, she began to play tournaments.
At the age of 12 she took part in the French Open and she won her first Junior Grand Slam tournament.
At this time she became the youngest winner of a Junior Grand Slam.
In March '94 she debuted at number 399 on the WTA single rankings.
She won her first tournament, the ITF satellite at Langenthal, after turning pro on October 14th '94, at the age of 14.
At the age of 15 she was among the top 20.
She became the youngest player in sports to earned more than one million dollars in a career.
At 16, she become the youngest player to win a Grand Slam – the Australian Open.   
On  March 31^st, 1997, she became the youngest number one in tennis history. 

A Typical Day in My Life, by Martina Hingis

I wake up at 8 in the morning. My mom does the breakfast, I start with the fitness trainer, 9:30, 10 o'clock. It's kinda warm-up.

Then I start practicing with one of the pros here in Saddlebrook -- play for one-and-a-half hours, two hours in the morning. Then we go back home, have lunch. My mom's a great cook, so she's always doing something special. Whatever I need.

And I go back on court around 2:30 and play for another one-and-a-half, two hours. There is the fitness part, I always try to do something different every day. We found a swim coach here and I really love doing that. I love water, I love the beach, so the swimming is something I always enjoy to do.

I've just started to do the Tai Chi, so it's kinda funny. It's something different. I never experienced anything like that before. I only watched it on TV when people do it, but I always admired when somebody could do it like karate or all that kick-boxing. So it's very interesting. Or do the fitness in the lifting room. I go out there and have some fun rollerblading.