"Martina Hingis has always been unfaithful to her boyfriends" - When Swiss icon's ex-husband accused her of serial adultery
Martina Hingis made tennis history for Switzerland, becoming the first player, male or female, from the country to win a Grand Slam and attain the World No. 1 spot.
Hingis won 25 Major titles in her career (five in singles, 13 in women's doubles and seven in mixed doubles) and was ranked the singles WTA No. 1 for 209 weeks. Her life off the court, though, was not free of controversy.
After multiple engagements (to fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek and Swiss attorney Andreas Bieri) that broke off, the Swiss icon married French equestrian show jumper Thibaut Hutin in 2010.
Three years later, in 2013, it came to light that they were separated. Speaking to Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick afterwards, Hutin claimed to have found out that Martina Hingis was cheating on him when he walked in on her sharing a hotel room with another man.
He also claimed that she cheated on him once again after he had forgiven her for the first instance. The Frenchman said that the former World No. 1 had a "very personal" conception of morality, and that she had, in his opinion, cheated on all her boyfriends over the years.
"A year after the wedding ... we were supposed to meet in New York, and I wanted to giver her a surprise. Upon arriving at the hotel room, it was me that was surprised, because Martina was not alone," he said.
"Late last year, I found out that she had cheated on me again. Martina has a very personal conception of morality. She has always been like that; I think she has always been unfaithful to her boyfriends," he added.
Martina Hingis' singles tennis career had an unceremonious end, as she tested positive for cocaine in 2007. After first retiring in 2003 at the age of just 22, Hingis, who made a comeback in 2005, announced her second retirement following the positive dope test, saying that it robbed her of motivation.
"The fact is that it is more and more difficult for me, physically, to keep playing at the top of the game. And frankly accusations such as these don't exactly provide me with motivation to even make another attempt to do so. I'm now 27 years old. And realistically too old to play top- class tennis," Martina Hingis said.
"I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous" - Martina Hingis on positive cocaine test
Martina Hingis, in fact, fought the charges, accusing the doping officials of mismanaging her samples. The Swiss legend believed that they would not be able to prove that they were her samples and therefore decided to confront the "horrendous and monstrous" accusation directly through the press.
"I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press. 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.," Martina Hingis said in a statement.
"The attorney and his experts discovered various inconsistencies with the urine sample that was taken during Wimbledon. He is also convinced that the doping officials mishandled the process and would not be able to prove that the urine that was tested for cocaine actually came from me," she added.
After a brief suspension by the ITF (International Tennis Federation), Hingis returned to the tour to play doubles. She won four women's doubles and six mixed doubles Grand Slam titles before her third and final retirement in 2017.
Martina Hingis is (since 2018) married to sports physician Harald Leemann, with whom she has a four-year daughter named Lia.