On Heels of Paris Effort, Hingis Comes Unhinged

By LISA DILLMAN

June 23, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WIMBLEDON, England — For Martina Hingis, the emotional baggage of Paris was not so easily lost. She could neither discard nor disregard it Tuesday, which led to one of the biggest upsets in Wimbledon history.

Hingis, a little more than two weeks ago, was three points from half a Grand Slam. Now she is a teenager in turmoil, professionally and personally, having won only two games against a 16-year-old qualifier making her Wimbledon debut.

Jelena Dokic of Australia, ranked No. 129 in the world, defeated the top-seeded Hingis, 6-2, 6-0, in 54 minutes, winning the final 11 games.

“It doesn’t really matter what the score is at the end,” said Hingis, a champion here in 1997. “Nobody really cares, if you lose.”

Only twice before has the No. 1 woman exited in the first round of a Grand Slam in the Open era, which began when pros were accepted in 1968. And it is the third time the top seed has lost in the first round at Wimbledon, the others being Margaret Court in 1962 and Steffi Graf in 1994.

Certainly, Hingis did not think she would be linked with Graf in this manner. Now it’s clear that the fateful match against Graf--the emotional three-set loss in the French Open final--has shaken and shattered the 18-year-old, who will spend the next four or five weeks trying to put herself back together before going to California for the hard-court season.

The underlying question: Will it be with her mother and coach, Melanie Molitor?

Molitor got her sobbing daughter to return to the court in Paris after Hingis was booed and jeered by the hostile crowd because of her immature behavior against Graf after Hingis had come within three points of winning her first French Open title. Hingis turned nearly everyone against her by smashing her racket, crossing over to the other side of the court to question a line call, and using an underhanded serve to fend off one match point.

On Tuesday, Molitor was not even in the country. It was the first time she had not been at a Grand Slam or any major tournament in which her daughter was playing. Afterward, Hingis revealed that they decided to part ways--at least temporarily--after last week’s tournament in Eastbourne, England.

“We just decided to have a little bit of distance, as I said before, and probably work a bit more on our private lives and see how it is going to go into the future,” Hingis said.

They have been talking on the phone, she said, but not about tennis matters. Hingis ruled out hiring a new coach, preferring to rely on her own judgment.

“Yes, in that way, [to be] more independent, to probably do my own decisions, not having somebody else telling me what to do,” she said.

But the Hingis experiment couldn’t have gone any worse against the poised, hard-hitting Dokic. A junior champion in the U.S. Open in 1998, Dokic has been dubbed a future star but Hingis defeated her, 6-1, 6-2, as recently as the Australian Open in January. Before the French Open, Dokic spent several days hitting with Hingis at Hingis’ home in Switzerland.

For Dokic, the victory was a major turnaround of family fortunes in England. Her father, Damir, a Serbian cab driver before the family emigrated to Australia in 1994, was removed by security guards for disorderly behavior at his daughter’s last tournament, in Birmingham, earlier this month. He had been shouting about NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia.

He made his way out into traffic, was nearly hit by a car, then was detained by police. No charges were pressed.

An English paper, the Independent, reported Sunday that father and daughter were interviewed by authorities investigating an alleged incident of abuse at a junior tournament in January 1998. Again, no charges were filed.

Dokic defended her father in Birmingham, saying officials overreacted.

“I owe him a lot, having him watch my matches and being there and working on my game,” she said. “He knows what I have to work on and what I have to face. He’s been a big influence on me.”

Damir Dokic’s reaction, she said, was like almost everyone else’s on the premises: “He was out of words.”

Later, her father said, “This was the greatest day of my life.”

Dokic said she never quite believed Hingis was out of it, even when she was in the midst of winning 11 consecutive games. Hingis tried to reverse the flow with drop shots, but the moxie was no substitute for substance.

The petulance of Paris was replaced by panic. At times, Hingis seemed simply frozen under the barrage of Dokic’s powerful ground strokes.

“It’s still hard to believe that I’ve beaten Martina,” said Dokic, playing in her third Grand Slam event. “But I still have to keep my feet on the ground. Just because I’ve beaten Martina doesn’t mean I’ll win the tournament.”

Said Hingis: “I’m not sure what went right, actually. Just a lot of things happened. I think I need to take some time off. Take a break and recover again. From everything. “

Her loss opens the top half of the draw at Wimbledon. The two highest seeded players in that half are No. 3 Lindsay Davenport of Newport Beach and No. 5 Jana Novotna, the defending champion. Davenport is ranked second in the world and could retake No. 1 by reaching the final here, along with a certain number of bonus points.

“It was quite shocking,” Davenport said of the Hingis match. “It was bizarre to watch. [Hingis] looked really out of it, almost nonchalant, and almost like she didn’t care that much. It was a performance I’ve never seen from her before.”

Hingis was stung by the harsh international criticism at Paris and admitted she had made some mistakes, vowing to put it all behind her. That was before the break with her mother, though, and late Tuesday night Hingis withdrew from the women’s doubles with partner Anna Kournikova, citing a recurring medical problem.

“I think she is devastated from the French Open fiasco,” television commentator Billie Jean King said. “I think it’s taken a lot out of her. She doesn’t have her equilibrium back. She looks emotionally crushed.”

BECKER SURVIVES: Boris Becker, who said he was retired from Wimbledon after 1997, needed five sets to win his first-round match. Page 5

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Planting Top Seeds

In the Open era, the No. 1-seeded woman has lost three times in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament:

* 1999, Wimbledon: Jelena Dokic d. Martina Hingis, 6-2, 6-0.

* 1994, Wimbledon: Lori McNeil d. Steffi Graf, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5).

* 1979, Australian Open: Margaret Sawyer d. Virginia Ruzici, 0-6, 6-2, 6-4.

****

EARLY HINGIS EXITS

This year’s first-round loss to Dokic was Hingis’ third-worst loss (in terms of games). The others:

* 1995, Canadian Open: Mary Pierce d. Hingis, 6-0, 6-0.

* 1995, Hamburg, Germany: Conchita Martinez d. Hingis, 6-1, 6-0.