Martina Hingis (born 30 September 1980 in Kosice, Slovakia, then Czechoslovakia) is a retired Swiss professional tennis player who spent a total of 209 weeks as World No. 1. She won five Grand Slam singles titles (three Australian Opens, one Wimbledon, and one US Open). She also won nine Grand Slam women's doubles titles, winning a calendar year doubles Grand Slam in 1998, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles title.
Hingis set a series of "youngest-ever" records before ligament injuries in both ankles forced her to withdraw temporarily from professional tennis in 2002 at the age of 22. After several surgeries and long recuperations, Hingis returned to the WTA tour in 2006. She then climbed to world number 6 and won three singles titles. On 1 November 2007, Hingis announced her retirement from tennis.
During this segment of her tennis career, Hingis won 40 singles titles and 36 doubles events. She held the World No. 1 singles ranking for a total of 209 weeks (fourth most following Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, and Chris Evert). In 2005, Tennis magazine put her in 22nd place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.
In 2009 Hingis partook in the BBC's dancing competition, Strictly Come Dancing. She was the bookies favourite for the competition. But she went out in the first week after performing a Waltz and a Rumba. Despite vowing to win the competition. She promised to apply the same gritty approach to the dance show that had taken her to five grand slams on the tennis court. "Everything I do I do to win. I am very competitive."
During Wimbledon (2010) in an interview with doubles partner Anna Kournikova, Hingis stated that she will not be returning to the tour, she has had her comeback before and it was fun.
