Wimbledon tennis star forced to retire at 27 after failing cocaine test
Former tennis sensation Martina Hingis had her illustrious career cut short at just 27, amid a tumultuous period involving cocaine allegations and the collapse of her first marriage.
The Swiss ace netted an impressive 25 Grand Slam titles in her trophy-laden stint, with notable victories across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at Wimbledon. Hingis took the tennis world by storm scooping five Grand Slam singles titles as a teenager.
With a reign as world No. 1 that lasted an impressive 209 weeks from March 1997, courtesy of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), her dominance on the court crumbled by 2007 due to injury woes, ultimately leading to a ban after she tested positive for a banned substance.
Hingis faced the media at a press conference to declare she was being probed for a positive test for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, insisting, "I have tested positive but I have never taken drugs and I feel 100% innocent.
"I am frustrated and angry. I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press."
Her Wimbledon drug test revealed 42 nanograms per millilitre of the substance, considered a minor amount. The International Tennis Federation acknowledged this in their report, and Hingis mounted an appeal, claiming the presence of the metabolite was due to contamination rather than illicit use, reports the Daily Star.
However, her appeal did not win and the following year a tribunal suspended Hingis from the sport for two years. She retired from professional tennis as a result.
The ex-tennis ace was married to Thibault Hutin, a French equestrian, but they split after just a year of marriage.
In 2018, Hingis tied the knot with former sports doctor Harald Leemann and together they welcomed a daughter.
The couple parted ways four years later, with reports indicating that Hingis and her child moved out of their family home to an apartment closer to her mother.
Reflecting on the separation in 2022, she admitted: "Yes, Harry and I have separated. We have different life plans and different goals and have grown apart from each other."
Reminiscing about her time on the court, Hingis spoke to ESPN, sharing her secret weapon: "My weapon on the tennis court is and always was one single thing: the game, the ingenuity on court.
"And for this style of tennis, there is only one performance enhancer - the love of the game."
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