Former World No. 1 Martina Hingis will continue her doubles comeback at next week's Mutua Madrid Open, as the tournament announced that the 33-year-old and Sabine Lisicki have been granted a wild card into the doubles draw.
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“First of all I’m very happy that we received a wild card, I’m very grateful to Manolo Santana and Ion Tiriac for giving us a wild card,” the nine-time doubles Grand Slam champion said in an interview with the tournament. “Hopefully soon we won’t need it anymore, but for this tournament it’s still necessary. It also helps winning the tournament… momentum. Hopefully that will attract the Madrid public and they’ll come and watch us and support us, that would be nice.”
Hingis and Lisicki won the Sony Open title in Miami in just their second event as a team, when they defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in a match tiebreak in the final. Hingis, who hadn't won a doubles title since 2007, had high praise for Lisicki after the event, saying “She definitely gets going when it's tight. Where sometimes other players go down, she gets up and lifts her level. I just tried to, you know, at least not to make the mistake and just let her play, right?”
The pair created quite a buzz in the Miami quarterfinals, when they saved seven match points to defeat Yaroslava Shvedova and Anabel Medina Garrigues.
Lisicki, who is currently coached by Lisicki as well as her father, has had a rough time on the singles court this season. Last year's Wimbledon finalist has yet to reach a quarterfinal in eight events.
Hingis, meanwhile, is just thrilled to be on the doubles court again, and to be playing Madrid for the first time. But the “Swiss Miss” still claims to have no desire to expand her comeback into the singles realm. “The main reason [I started playing doubles again] was that I felt that I still had some games to play against the top girls,” she said. “It’s not the same for the singles but for the doubles I still feel like I have the game.”
Photo Source: Christopher Levy