Hingis Takes Her First Wimbledon Youngest Champion In 110 Years Forces Novotna To Wait Another Year

With the smile of a cheerleader and the appetite of a shark, Martina Hingis is the epitome of a new wave of tennis teenagers with no qualms about preying on the older generation. Granted a perfect setup for Saturday’s Wimbledon final - the absence of seven-time champion Steffi Graf and the presence of Jana Novotna, an opponent nearly twice her age with aches and pains to prove it - Hingis made a point of collecting her second career Grand Slam crown.

Hingis, the 16-year-old prodigy who already has a death grip on the rest of the women’s field, became the youngest Wimbledon champion since 1887 by spoiling Novotna’s desperate bid to capture a title that reduced her to helpless tears four years ago in her only other appearance in its final.

A contender in all three Grand Slam finals in 1997, Hingis earned her second Grand Slam crown of the year with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 comeback against the 28-year-old Czech veteran. Novotna remains without a Grand Slam victory in her 12-year career.

“This time, it was a really good chance for me to win,” Hingis said. “I was seeded No.1, and I only lost to Steffi before at this tournament, so I thought maybe when she’s not here, I can win it too.”

Hingis is now 44-1 in 1997; her sole defeat came against Iva Majoli in the French Open final last month. Here at Wimbledon, she did not face a seeded player until she met Novotna in Saturday’s final. And when it was over, Hingis showed that she had taken note of Graf’s often-performed Centre Court victory lap by replicating it.

“I almost felt to cry because it happened to me,” said Hingis, who did not cry.

Neither, for a change, did the third-seeded Novotna. Instead of sobbing on the Duchess of Kent’s shoulder as she had done after losing a 4-1 third set lead to Graf in 1993, on Saturday Novotna and the duchess had an amiable chat. Novotna reported afterward that they talked about the veteran’s prospects for reprising this final-round performance, only with a different ending, next year.

“I told her I’m getting a little bit old, and she said my third time would be lucky,” said Novotna, who blamed her inability to stop Hingis from turning a 2-0 final-set deficit into a 4-2 lead on a strained abdominal muscle. Novotna said the injury weakened her serve and compromised her flying forays toward the net as the match wore on.

Novotna’s dogged determination in reaching this tournament’s finale moved her to a career-best second in the rankings behind Hingis. But in Saturday’s confrontation, Hingis’ brilliant strategizing from the baseline proved too much for Novotna’s brave but risk-laden all-out attack. Novotna, now 2-4 against Hingis, saw net-charging bravado as her only hope of prevailing. For a set, it worked beautifully. From then on, the match slowly and inexorably slid the teenager’s way.

With the match in her grasp, Hingis stumbled only briefly when she dropped her serve as she served for the victory at 5-2 of the final set. But she corrected that mistake immediately by breaking Novotna for the match.

Novotna began the final game with a double fault and saved one match point when Hingis flogged a backhand return out of bounds. But then the teenager took over. Hingis used a fluid backhand pass to create her second match point, and blithely pocketed it and the championship with a mean forehand pass to Novotna.

In the opening set, Novotna controlled the net, and the set. Predatory from the instant she charged in behind her first return to break Hingis in the opening game, Novotna built a 4-0 lead and converted the set in just 22 minutes.

On a day when the players could finally see their shadows after a stream of 10 sunless days, all Hingis saw in the first set was the double image of Novotna and her equally aggressive shadow closing in.

“I felt like a beginner out there in the first set; she didn’t give me any opportunity to pass, and she was all over the net,” Hingis said of Novotna’s go-for-broke tactics.

After hanging on to her first service game in the final set, Novotna consulted with a trainer during the change-over. She had pulled out of her doubles assignment here on Friday with complaints of a quadriceps strain and wore a stabilizing bandage on her right knee on Saturday.

The talk with the trainer apparently stabilized Novotna’s confidence as well as her leg; she came out and broke Hingis for a 2-0 lead.

After sending a cross-court backhand far wide of its intended sideline target at break point, Hingis slammed her racquet on the already-scarred grass court, but earned no rebuke from the umpire. After Novotna lunged in vain to intercept Hingis’s down-the-line forehand pass at break point in the sixth game, she again summoned the trainer, this time to check her stomach muscle. But Hingis completed a four-game tear for a 4-2 lead.

Novotna’s double fault at triple break point in the next game not only gave Hingis a 5-2 lead, but it also made her smile with the knowledge that victory was at hand.

“She saw the opening, and she went for it,” Novotna said.