Pat Cash, Martina Hingis, and delusions

Not that many days ago, former Australian tennis pro Pat Cash said of Martina Hingis's return to tennis: "If Hingis expects to come back and start winning Grand Slam titles again, I am afraid she is deluded."

Well, Hingis just took Australian Open number two seed and world number two Kim Clijsters to three sets in the 2006 quarterfinals. Hingis got off to a dismal start, unable to find any kind of rhythm, and losing 2-6 to the hard-hitting Clijsters. But then, in the second set, she returned to her old ways of forcing errors from her opponent and doing anything to create confusion. She won the second set 6-2, and lost the third 4-6. She actually had a chance to take the match, to the amazement of not only Cash, I'm sure, but all of us: Even her biggest fans--and I'm one of them--didn't think she could do this well her first time back at a Slam with almost no match preparation.

Cash is right about one thing--that Hingis's "old demons are going to re-emerge quickly" if she continues to be outhit by power players. Hingis is definitely hitting harder than she used to, which is helping her a lot in rallies, and which is probably enough to see her through. But her serve is still her greatest problem. She had been getting a lot of first serves in at the Open, so--even though they were not extremely fast--she had achieved an excellent first serve percentage, and the little extra speed she put on them helped her a lot.

But when she played Clijsters, Hingis had trouble getting her first serve in, and her second serve was dismal. Also, her first serve speed slowed down against Clijsters, and was sometimes slower than Clijsters' second serve.

What this means is that Hingis, whose game is probably better than when she retired in 2002--harder hitting, more net play--will still not be able to compete at the very top unless she can do something about that serve. My suggestion would be for her to pay a call on Robert Landsdorp and have him put her through the same ball-hitting grind he put Maria Sharapova through when he was coaching her. She will have to do something, for sure.

But back to Pat Cash. Does he really think the great Hingis would return to the tour if she hadn't prepared herself for the biggest matches of all? To return after 3 1/2 years and push someone like Clijsters to a three-set match is an amazing feat in sports. I hope Cash was watching. Who's deluded now? I wondered, but then, it was Pat Cash who once referred to women's tennis as "two sets of junk." If that's what Hingis was delivering, then take me to the junkyard...please.