Some of the more pleasant surprises I’ve had in recent weeks has been reading the elated, intelligent comments and e-mails posted by diehard Martina Hingis fans.
It strikes me that in a comparatively large number of her fans, her virtues as a player nose out—but just barely—her appeal and status as a Most Favored Personality. In other words, Hingis supporters tend to be discriminating tennis fans, not just Kool-Aid drinkers at the fountain of celebrity.
Hingis' comeback began auspiciously the other day at the Gold Coast tournament Down Under, with a convincing 2-and-1 win over Maria Vento-Kabchi—not the toughest of all possible opponents, but no gimme, either.
The 31-year-old veteran Vento-Kabchi was unlikely to be awed or starstruck in the presence of Hingis. But the Swiss Miss was taking no chances. She made her debut in a fire-engine red Adidas top and matching skirt, lest anyone get the misimpression that the passion is gone, that she’s not all woman and warrior-princess, or that she isn't completely comfortable with the sight of blood.
Was that a statement, or what? The only thing missing was stiletto-tip slingback pumps, with three stripes . . .
Linda Pearce, the tennis specialist at The Age, has the full report here. And if you just can’t get enough of the lady in red, here’s a bonus wrap from John Roberts of the Independent.
How about Linda describing Vento-Kabchi as “portly”?
Ouch.
In his Daily Tennis e-mail (subscription only, folks, but his free news site is most useful!) the other day, Bob Larson noted that Hingis will debut low in the rankings and then, in the first major tennis geekout (it's like a freakout, but by a tennis geek) of the New Year, Bob fired a huge volley across the bow of the WTA for eliminating the “quality points” from its rankings system.
For those of you who care, this means that players will no longer get extra ranking points for scoring wins over top players. This is too bad, because it will make those attention-grabbing ranking leaps by newcomers that much more rare, even as it sends top players the message that it will be that much harder for them to maintain high rankings if they play skeleton schedules.
In fact, Larson posted the top five single-tournament quality-point earners of last year. They were:
Venus Williams, Wimbledon Win: 470
Serena Williams, Australian Open Win: 448
Mary Pierce, Roland Garros F: 438
Justine Henin-Hardenne, Roland Garros Win: 434
Mary Pierce, U. S. Open F: 378
I guess the stats suggest that the rich get richer, and it certainly would be nice to see more of a committment to playing from the top stars. But the WTA may also be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The concept of awarding more points for more significant wins is a valid one.
Think of QPs as a bounty. Top players garnered the most quality points at specific tournaments because they beat more of the quality players who have QPs on their heads. If, say, the “portly” Vento-Kabchi happened to win Wimbledon, beating three of the top six seeds en route, she would have cracked the list above as well.
My feeling is that the down side of eliminating QPs is too big. This brings us back to the resurgent Hingis. Her drive to get back into the Top 10 will take that much longer, now that she has no chance of earning quality points in addition to her round-by-round tally.
In turn, this means that she’ll be more likely to run into highly seeded players early in tournaments for a longer period, making it that much harder for her to rocket up the rankings—even if she were playing well enough to do so. Here’s the money quote from Larson's critique of the WTA for eliminating the QPs:
Note to Larson: How about tracking Hingis’s old system/new system differential as the year goes on?