Hingis faces power cut

Martina Hingis: Can she reclaim her number one spot?

BBC Sport Online's Mark Jolly considers the chances of Martina Hingis overcoming the power players to record a second US Open triumph.

When Martina Hingis won the women's doubles at Wimbledon in 1996 at the age of 15 years and 282 days, she became the youngest ever to win a title there.

Experts confidently predicted she would dominate the game in the way Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf had before her.

And for a while, that is the way it went. The following year, she won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and at Flushing Meadows.

If she had not fallen from a horse in April she may well have won the Grand Slam. As it was she reached the final of the French Open, losing to Iva Majoli.

The success has continued and Hingis has been world number one for most of the time since she first reached the spot in March 1997.

Passed by

But she has never dominated the game in the way Navratilova and Graf did.

Her last Grand Slam victory came at the Australian Open 18 months ago and now, at the age of 19, there are those who think she has been passed by.

There is no doubt she is the most naturally talented of the female players.

She can follow a string of powerful groundstrokes with the most delicate of drop-shots or step forward and hammer a drive-volley for a winner without turning a hair.

Serena Williams

The Williams sisters, Lindsay Davenport and Mary Pierce can only dream of some of these shots - but they are less frail, fitter and stronger.

And while on any given day Hingis would be favourite to beat one of them, so far she has failed to find a way to beat all of them in succession, which she has to do to win the big events.

Last year's US Open was a prime example. Hingis needed all her guile to beat third seed Venus Williams 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in a two-hour semi final.

Set point

Asked to do it again the next day against the younger Williams sister, Serena, in the final, Hingis came up just short. She had a set point in the second set but lost 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

It is a trend that has continued since, with losses to Pierce at the French Open and Venus Williams in this year's Wimbledon quarter final.

It is far too early to write off Hingis, and over the last year she has worked hard on her fitness and strength.

But if she is to end her career with a similar glittering record to Graf and Navratilova, dealing with the muscular power girls is something she will have to learn to do.