Welcome Back, Martina, We Missed You!

I just finished a worldwide telephone press conference with Martina Hingis. At the conference, she officially announced her return to the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Nothing really earth-shattering, considering that the news broke about a week ago. The questions from my colleagues were of the standard variety, but what caught me as interesting was how many questions were asked about the same thing. Why was Martina returning to the tour now, and what was it that brought her back? Isn't this obvious?

Martina left the game way too early, and I think she always knew it. Martina never really was too far from the professional game. She spent some of her time off the tour doing tennis commentary for television. While sitting in the booth, Martina had two years to watch her contemporary, Lindsay Davenport, re-emerge as the No. 1 player, and got to watch "elder stateswoman" Mary Pierce just blow through 2005 and every supposed "better" player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Martina, even when not at 100%, was light years better than both. She got to watch Elena Dementieva, probably the only woman's player in history without a serve, run through draws and make the French and U.S. Open finals. Watching all this up close clearly made her itch to return. Then she added a dose of World Team Tennis, where she still dominated, and the deal was sealed. If Lindsay and Mary were dominant, and Martina was better than them, and now Martina was healthy, then why wouldn't Martina be able to rise back to the top?

Make no mistake about it. Martina is not ambivalent about her comeback. She would not be back if she couldn't be in the top five and didn't have a clear shot at winning another major tournament. She even stated that she wouldn't be happy chasing the top from around No. 25. She sees the decline of the Williams sisters' games, the one-dimensional style of play, the inconsistency of the players on the tour, and knows that she will win, and quickly.

Hingis was nothing if not consistent, and her style of play puts her in better position than most to take advantage of the injury-depleted draws that are now the rule rather then the exception on the WTA tour. In my opinion, had Martina played the 2005 WTA Championships as her first comeback tournament, she probably would have won that.

One idea I did take away from the press conference was that Martina appears to be seriously in it for the long haul. She referenced several times conversations she has had with the other Martina [Navratilova]. My question (yes, I know, you are just dying to know what I asked) was will Martina play doubles as well as singles upon her return, or will she just focus on her singles? Her answer was most interesting, "I don't have a [doubles] partner right now," Hingis stated. "I have spoken to Martina [Navratilova] about it." So, will we see them partner at the Australian Open? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Having said all that, I don't need to know the intricacies of why Martina Hingis is back. I just know she is. And that makes me probably the happiest man in the world right now. My favorite tennis player in the whole world, Martina Hingis, is back. I'm too giddy with happiness. Welcome back, Martina. Good luck in your comeback, may you reign supreme once more. I am honored that I had the chance to talk to you today about playing tennis again. Our tennis journalist friends may struggle to understand the mechanism of why, but we understand it well.