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Martina Hingis: the best player in the world

© Michael Cecilio

Martina Hingis regains the world #1 ranking
And she's finally done it - again. Martina Hingis looks up to nobody on the WTA ranking list this week as she has regained the top spot in women's tennis. After a 17 week absence from the #1 position, it seems that Martina has regained the form of 1997 which took her to three grand slam singles titles out of four finals. She looks well on her way to dominate the tour once again, having captured three major titles since the end of last year - the Chase Championships, the Australian Open (her fifth grand slam singles title), and now more recently, the Pan Pacific Open.

So far this year, Martina has been on a tear, ripping through her first three tournaments of the year by reaching the finals of each, and collecting two titles already. In only fifteen matches this year, Martina has already dispatched the likes of former #1's Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles and Steffi Graf, current top tenners Jana Novotna and Mary Pierce, and now the ever consistent, the ever tough Amanda Coetzer. When will this incredible run end? According to Martina, intends to stay at the top for the rest of her career.

Top seeds live up to their ranking
Well there are some things we can still count on. 1999's Toray Pan Pacific Open developed no early surprises, at least not until the final rounds. All eight seeds managed to live up to their seeding by reaching the quarter final round, despite some minor hurdles along the way. Anna Kournikova's infamous service yips plagued her during her first round match against tour veteran Anke Huber. Luckily for Anna, Anke caught some of that service yips herself, in what was a match full of errors and double faults. Despite the hurdle, Anna continued to fight as she had done at the Australian Open, and managed to stage a marquee quarter final show down with her doubles partner and undenied champion Monica Seles. Class and experience worked in Monica's favour to defeat Anna 7-5 6-3.

The most intriguing match right from the outset was the quarter final clash between 5th seed Steffi Graf and 2nd seed Martina Hingis. What made this match so intriguing in the beginning was the fact that it was so difficult to pick the outright winner. Before this match, Steffi had won six of the past seven encounters with Martina, winning the last one last year in Philadelphia 6-0 in the third. Based on this statistic alone, the edge would have been given to Steffi. But so many other factors had come into play. Steffi's last victory came at a time when Martina was suffering from a form slump. Undeniably, Martina had rebounded from that slump since the last time they met. Having won the Australian Open the previous week, it was known that her form was in tip-top shape. In addition, many of Steffi's previous victories over Martina came during 1996, a year when Steffi was dominating the tour (having won three grand slams that year), and when Martina was only just breaking into the tour.

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