Hingis Is a Semi-Tough Glutton for Punishment

Martina Hingis hasn’t won a Grand Slam title in almost three years, but she keeps coming back, the No. 1 seed always, ranked at the top by the computer because she does keep coming back. She plays when the others rest, she’s healthy when the others are hurt. Hingis believes strongly that she can beat all the other women, the ones who are bigger, faster and stronger, the ones who pulverize her second serve, the ones who close down her clever angles, the ones who pummel her with their powerful, relentless groundstrokes, the strokes that leave her tired and sore and so often the loser.

And still she keeps coming back to stir the pot, to speak her mind, to make it to the quarterfinals or semifinals or sometimes the final before she smacks up against a towering American.

Today is Ladies Day at the U.S. Open. Sure enough, here is Hingis, eager to point out, if someone makes a mistake, that her quickest match in the last 10 days was 37 minutes, not 42, and eagerly accepting congratulations because, as she says, “Oh, it’s another semifinals, so I’m very happy about that. Makes it five or six straight, at least, semifinals. Feels good.”

Hingis, the top seed, will play No. 10 Serena Williams in the first semifinal. No. 2 seed Jennifer Capriati meets No. 4 Venus Williams in the second semi. Here she is again, Ms. Hingis against the towering Americans.

If her mouth gets her into trouble sometimes, if she is caught too often making disparaging remarks about her opponents, if she sometimes behaves as if it is 1997 and she is ruling the tennis world, she is also a vulnerable 21-year-old who wonders what place she has in the game. Has it passed her by? Is that No. 1 ranking a consolation prize?

“These days it’s more about winning the tournaments,” she says in an honest admission. “It’s not only the ranking.”

Since she stopped winning major titles, she has been offered plenty of advice. Get in better shape, Martina. Pump up your serves, Martina. Don’t try to outhit the big girls, Martina. Learn to hit it harder, Martina. Play less, Martina. Play more, Martina.

“I’m tired of people telling me, ‘You should do this. You should do that,’ ” she says. “Sometimes you have to pump yourself up. It’s not that I couldn’t hit a big serve. Definitely not like Venus or Serena. But sometimes it’s a confidence thing.”

Hingis is filled with both too much and too little confidence. She will be quick to brag about her No. 1 ranking. “I think I’ve proven myself over the last four years. I’ve been the most consistent. I might not always have won, but I won the most. That’s why I’m No. 1.”

But the bluster of those words disappears a minute later. “I think I have a chance to win here,” she says. “I have to believe in it. If it comes out, great. If not, I tried to do the best for it.”

Sometimes Hingis she seems desperate. She says things about the Williams sisters or Anna Kournikova, outrageous things about the race of Venus and Serena or the lack of substance to Kournikova’s tennis. She gets in verbal wars with her opponents almost on purpose, as if she knows that winning Grand Slam tournaments might be beyond her but staying in the spotlight must be done at any cost.

She will march into Arthur Ashe Stadium today as the lonely little warrior. She knows she would be the least popular finalist for the first prime-time U.S. Open women’s final Saturday. The favorite story line is that Venus and Serena Williams will be the first two sisters to play for a U.S. Open championship. The second favorite story line is that Capriati conquers the Open, the tournament where she had suffered intense expectations and intense disappointments and where she would love to earn her third Grand Slam title this year.

There hasn’t been a No. 1 seed so little chosen as the favorite to win the tournament in a long time. Her game of soft touch and clever point construction seems almost quaint. It was her feel for the game that made her dominant four years ago. Now all she feels is the hard, deep, tiring groundstrokes of the Williams sisters and Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Monica Seles.

Hingis praised her quarterfinal victim, 18-year-old Daja Bedanova, as being “much more a strategy player than a hard hitter. You don’t see that too often from a youngster. That’s very unusual these days.” Hingis beat this “unusual” youngster, 6-2, 6-0. Of course, Hingis enjoyed the strategy. She ate it up.

Today she will be punished. She will be run around the court by Serena Williams, she will sometimes have to run for cover when Serena treats Hingis’ second serve as artillery to be fired back at killer speed. If Hingis beats Serena, she will only face more punishment from Capriati or Venus. Hingis thought she had conquered those demons at this year’s Australian Open. She had beaten Serena in the quarterfinals and then Venus in the semis. “I did it, you know,” Hingis says, “beat the sisters back-to-back when people said I couldn’t.” Problem was, Hingis couldn’t beat Capriati in the final.

That’s the part Hingis doesn’t mention. She will tell you she is always stepping up, what she deserves and what she has done right. Venus and Serena and Jennifer are ready to show Hingis that talk isn’t enough. Again.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com