Toray Pan Pacific Tennis
The world’s top female stars battle it out in Tokyo

Maria Sharapova

Masaaki Kato

BIt’s been 10 years since Martina Hingis first won the Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis Tournament, and five years since she collected the last of her four titles. Remarkably, she’s still only 26 and has already retired once. Hingis will be back in Japan for the latest edition of the TPPO and hoping to improve on her 2006 showing, when she finished runner-up to champion Elena Dementieva after a 6-2, 6-0 thrashing in the final. Dementieva will return to defend her title, and once again the main challenge for these two will come from US Open champion Maria Sharapova, the 2005 champ.

The Toray Pan Pacific Open is the top women’s tennis tournament in Japan, classified as a Tier I tournament on the WTA Tour with prize money of $1.34 million. It’s positioned immediately after the Australian Open on the WTA calendar—an advantage, as it’s in roughly the same time zone, but also a disadvantage because the Australian Open can take its toll on the players.

At 26, Hingis is an old-timer on the tour (she’s been a pro for nearly 13 years), but her appearance this year will be different from the last. In 2006, she had just come out of retirement and was ranked number 349 in the world, only making the draw as a wild card. In her first month back, though, she added another Grand Slam title to her collection (in mixed doubles) and reached the singles quarterfinals at the Australian.
Korean Cho Yoon Jeong, a lucky loser in qualifying, was first up for Hingis in the 2006 TPPO, and the Swiss star promptly sent her packing, 6-0, 6-0. This was no ordinary wild card; this was a woman making up for lost time. Hingis then dumped third seed Nathalie Dechy and Russia’s Maria Kirlenko before coming up against top-seed Sharapova. Astonishingly, Hingis stomped all over the then-world number 4 (6-3, 6-1) to reach the final.

Although Dementieva was the second seed and ranked number 9 in the world, not many were willing to bet against Hingis—not so much because she had proved conclusively that she was back to her best, and not because she already held four Toray titles, but more because she has always been one of the world’s most intelligent players, able to think her way out of situations where brute force has no answer. But brute force, and fitness, won the day last year, as Dementieva overpowered the Swiss star for only her fifth WTA title.

Perhaps it was no great surprise. What was surprising was how easily Sharapova crumbled in her quarterfinal match. The Russian had only advanced one round better than Hingis at the Australian Open the week before, hadn’t just spent three years in retirement, and was seven years younger than her illustrious opponent (she won’t be 20 until April). For many fans, this was the real final. Perhaps it was for Hingis too. The Swiss star needed an impressive victory to measure the progress of her comeback, and her triumph over Sharapova filled that role. After beating the former Wimbledon champion, Hingis didn’t really have anything to prove in the final.
Sharapova, though, felt that she did. The Russian teenager went on to capture five WTA crowns and capped off a superb 2006 by winning the US Open (she also beat Hingis twice in subsequent WTA events). She ended the year as world number 2.

These three will again be the favorites for this year’s Toray title. Betting against any of them will be tough.

Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Jan 30-Feb 4. See sports listings for details.

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