Martina Hingis Fades From Game

Some of the excuses from these athletes are just laughable. They thought they were just injecting vitamins in their behinds. They didn't know the ingredients in that medicine. They must have gotten it in their systems by kissing a woman who had been using the stuff at a bar.

Martina Hingis never made an excuse for failing a cocaine test. She said she never did the stuff and had no clue how it could have gotten into her system, if it really did.

So it's over for Hingis. She failed that test more than two years ago, and now her suspension is up, and it's the era of comebacks in women's tennis. I always figured she'd try again. A failed drug test was no way for a great athlete to end a career.

But Hingis told L'Equipe of France, she's not coming back.

"I've got a nice house, my four horses," she said. "On the tour, I had no life."

Is there any shock over this? A champion with five major titles, and her career ended like this?

She said she never did it, but she didn't even put up a fight. Her test results are a little fishy, to be honest. Richard Gasquet failed a cocaine test this year with a trace amount in his system. It was such a tiny amount that when he appealed, his suspension was overturned because an independent panel believed his story about getting it in his system by kissing a woman in a bar.

That's how tiny the amount was.

Hingis had less in her system than Gasquet did. And an SI.com reporter writes that with the amount she had, she would have passed a military drug test. They changed the rules after Hingis failed, providing wiggle room for a lesser punishment. When she failed, it was an automatic two years.

We don't trust the athletes, but how much do we know about the drug-testers, anyway? Is there some other way that the tiniest of traces of the stuff can get into your system?

On top of that, Hingis got a two-year ban for a trace of a recreational drug. Manny Ramirez got less than one-third of a season for cheating with steroids.

"I didn't have the right to play any competition, even in another Olympic sport," she said. "I didn't have the right to feature in equestrian competition, even at an amateur level.

"I'm not sure I have completely recovered."

I can almost feel bad for her. Almost.

But it's hard to stand up for someone who doesn't fight for herself.

Hingis said two years ago that she was "frustrated and angry because I believe I'm 100 percent innocent. [I have] no desire to spend the next seven years fighting doping officials."

It was a thrill to watch her with her smart, artistic style when she first came up. Her career turned in a meltdown against Steffi Graf at the French Open final, when Hingis complained about calls, walked to the other side of the net, took a bathroom break, served underhand a few times. She had it won, but then lost. And when it was over, her mother had to talk Hingis, in tears, into going back for the awards ceremony.

Hingis never won another major. She quit three years later because of foot problems, but then came back and climbed to No. 6 in the world. She wasn't strong enough anymore, though, to contend with the Williams sisters, or other big players.

"I was on [the] down slope," she said. "And I was suspended for two years, and that was it."

Hingis was tested for drugs a few weeks ago, and said that apparently tennis' governing bodies thought she was planning to come back. How will her career be remembered? Well, no one seems ready to bash her, honestly. Maybe it's because it was a recreational drug and not a performance enhancer. Maybe it's because we've grown numb to drugs in sports.

But 209 weeks at No. 1, a major winner at 16, and this is how it ends, with Hingis riding horses at 29, competing and losing in the first round of Strictly Come Dancing, the British TV version of Dancing With the Stars.

In that one, by the way, she was definitely robbed.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com