magine if your father was the ultimate Little League dad from hell, who was so into baseball that he named you Babe. Or your parents were so gaga over hoops that they called you Wilt, Bird or Kobe? Meet our girl Martina. No, not that one, the lefty from the Czech Republic with a nasty serve-and-volley game. We’re talking about Martina II — Martina Hingis.

From her early days, Hingis seamlessly lived up to her imposing name. At 12, she became the youngest girl to win a junior Grand Slam title — the French Open. Then, in ‘97, she became the youngest Wimby champion when she won the dubs with Helena Sukova. Here was tennis’ friskiest pony, a haughty filly, proud and prancing, with an ample sense of entitlement. Some raved. “She has a wistful waifliness,” noted Bud Collins. “She’s figured out the puzzles of the rectangle, the alteration of pace and angles, something that most phenoms never do.” The conventional wisdom was clear: sublime backhand, great hands and an even better brain, suspect forehand and second serve; a doubles whiz sans much muscle, but has a divinely nuanced feel for ball and court, and is a total delight to watch!

But en route to becoming the youngest No. 1 in history (she ruled for 209 weeks, the fourth-longest reign ever), there were cautionary voices. “Green, Mean and Just 15,” read a Newsday headline. “She is not burdened by any senses of false modesty,” noted the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Jerry Magee.

After one win, Martina informed us, “I played just unbelievably.” Similarly, after collecting the singles and women’s dubs at the ‘97 Aussie Open, the cocky but endearing 5-foot-7 champ, with that eerie Cheshire grin, told the crowd that next year she “needed to give someone else a chance to win.” Named to this power list or that sexiest list, Hingis delighted in being a part of tennis’ Spice Girls [think Anna Kournikova], because she claimed, “We’re much prettier than all the other woman in sports.” As for her availability for commercial endeavors, she giggled, “I’m for sale.”

Ahh, Martina — the girl who relentlessly ‘drop-shoted’ her pregnant U.S. Open foe, Tami Whitlinger-Jones, and threw a towel at her mom during a Fed Cup match — we dearly loved your unscripted ways, your unwavering candor. Dull you weren’t.

As women’s tennis answer to Muhammad Ali, there were few friends or foes who escaped the acidic zingers the Swiss diss-meister dished. Of her singles competition with doubles partner Kournikova, Martina asked, “What competition? I always win.” And why was she no longer playin’ dubs with Jana Novotna? “She’s old and slow,” Martina explained. Even the woman many called the best ever drew ‘Hingisian’ disdain. “Steffi [Graf] had some results in the past,” Martina noted. “But it’s a faster, more athletic game now...She is old now. Her time has passed.” Just months later, Steffi would overwhelm her in Paris.

Hingis’ most callous cut was reserved for openly-gay Amelie Mauresmo, who she dismissed as being “half a man” and when tennis began to drool over hot prospect Maria Sharapova, Hingis rained on the parade, saying, “I don’t see what she has that’s so special.”

As for Venus and Serena, Martina was unsparing. “They have big mouths. They always talk a lot.” And what about their race? Hingis claimed, “Being black only helps them. Many times they get sponsors because they are black. They had a lot of advantages because they can always say, ‘It’s racism... Because we are this color, things happen.’”

Of course, things were always happening in Martina’s busy social life. A boy-crazed clothes horse, the Queen Bee created a deep resume of celebrity beaus [including golfer Sergio Garcia, soccer star Ramon Vega and tennis’ Rafael Stepanek, Magnus Norman, Ivo Heuberger and Julian Alonso]. Hingis survived a Miami stalking incident then dated her lawyer. On court, she gave us the most infamous implosion (this side of Jana Novotna at Wimbledon) in women’s tennis history when, as she was going down to Steffi at the ‘99 French Open, she tearfully disintegrated. She heaved and wheezed before a fiercely cruel crowd that didn’t exactly fancy her gamesmanship (which literally crossed the line) or her underhanded serves.

Then, in ‘02, with the increasing dominance of Big Babe Tennis (the Williamses, Lindsay Davenport, Mauresmo, Clijsters, et al), the just slightly slower filly sensed, “Oh, my God, I’m being outgunned.” When Chris Evert had a similar realization about her muscular foe Martina Navratilova, she went to the gym and ferociously fought back. But to each his own. In ’03, a burned-out Hingis chose to retire at 22.

But guess what. Riding horses, studying English, doing TV commentary and schmoozing with sponsors just couldn’t match the sizzle of Centre Court. So three years later the Swiss dusted off her Adidas’ to orchestrate a warm-and-cozy comeback that lifted her into the hearts of millions and to No. 6 in the world. Along the way, she reached three more Tier I finals and became only the fourth woman to earn over $20 million in career earnings. But a wretched thing happened on the way to the bank. Inexplicably, the girl they called Martina — the undersized Swiss Miss with the oversized feel for the game — was busted at Wimbledon for cocaine use, an offense that led to a two-year suspension. Always a spunky presence — a singular shotmaker who we came to embrace with such zest — the whimsical wonder who entered the game with such an upbeat blast, at 27 was again throwing in the towel and suddenly leaving without much of a fight. This time she was under a dreary cloud of (“Can two positive drug tests really be wrong?”) suspicion. Now her trademark Cheshire smile and lethal backhand were but memories as she left the stage and her stunned fans who could only plead, “Martina, say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.”

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