Female Athletes and Boots Month - Tennis Week:
Martina Hingis
Tennis Week continues with Martina Hingis. Martina was a great tennis player, but even more important toBoot Nation is that she became an equestrian after she retired from playing professional tennis. More on her horse riding career in a moment. First we want to give props to Martina for her tennis accomplishments.
Martina Hingis was born in former Czechoslovakia, presently, Slovakia and immigrated to Switzerland when she was seven years old. Martina is only 5'6" tall, but she is a very strong person, both physically and mentally. Martina was a tremendous tennis player. Her singles record was 548 - 133. She won five grand slam events in singles, including three consecutive Australian Opens from 1997 to 1999. The year 1997 was Martina's most dominant when she won, in addition to the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Her doubles record was even more impressive, 285 - 54. She won the Australian Open four times from 1997 to 1999 and 2002; the French Open in 1998 and 2000; Wimbledon in 1996 and 1998; and finally the U.S. Open in 1998. In addition, Martina represented Switzerland in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Martina turned down an offer to represent Switzerland and play with Roger Federer in the Mixed Doubles event at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England. For her career she spent a total of 209 weeks as the #1 Ranked player. Wow! One of Martina's partner's in her doubles matches was
Anna Kournikova. Kournikova decided that since she couldn't beat Hingis she might as well become her partner.
All of Martina's victories impress Boot Nation, but what really is amazing is her second career as an equestrian. Horse riding is Boot Nation's favorite female sport by far. A powerful small female mounts a giant 2000 pound animal and dominates it by making it prance around and jump over fences and ponds while wearing knee high leather boots and carrying a whip. No, we're not talking about dominatrix Miss Tiffany. This is our little tennis champion, Martina who invested a significant amount of her career tennis earnings on horses. Martina has taken some falls from her horse, but with her strong athletic will, she always gets back up and has the patience to teach the horse how to perform the jumps by doing a little demonstration to which the horse finds midly helpful, but very amousing.
Below we have a nice little story of Martina's two careers, one as a tennis star, the other as a professional knee-high booted horse rider. At one point, Martina gets a full kiss from Anna Kournikova, the thrill of her life for sure!
Lastly, when Martina finishes her equestrian career she is going to take up Formula-One racing! It's worked out pretty well for Danica Patrick.
