NEVER return to the scene of the crime, or so they say, but when you are a professional tennis player - and a good one at that - and you committed your crime during the French Open final, that can be tricky. Worse, you committed it in front of 16,000 outraged spectators and a worldwide television audience. Then again, the Martina Hingis who will make her entrance at Roland Garros next week is a far different character from the fraught and frustrated teenager who threw a tantrum, lost to Steffi Graf and then sobbed her heart out in her mother's arms 12 months ago. It was one of the most remarkable finals. Trouble had been brewing from the first set, when Hingis received a warning for racket abuse as she lost her early lead. This did little for relations with the Parisian crowd, who regarded Graf as one of their own.
Still, a set and a break up, Hingis was in control until a line judge called her forehand out. Hingis demanded that the umpire go and check the mark but the official could not find it. The baseline judge went to lend a hand and even Graf went for a look. Still no mark, still no overrule. At that point Hingis stormed around the net - and all hell broke loose.
The umpire would not budge, Hingis would not play. Penalised a point for unsportsmanlike conduct, she dropped her service twice as Graf began to edge her way back into the match. A protracted bathroom break to change her clothes and hairstyle in the third set turned the few remaining Hingis supporters against her and by the time she had served underarm on match point for Graf, they were baying for her blood. Hingis lost and ran from the court. Only her mother could persuade her back for the presentations but as soon as she set foot on court, she burst into tears again.
Not that the French final was the end of it. Two weeks later Hingis sent Melanie Molitor, her mother and coach, back to Switzerland as she went to Wimbledon alone. She did not stay long, losing in the first round to Jelena Dokic, at the time a virtually unknown 16-year-old.
According to popular wisdom, Hingis had gone at every level. Without her mother to hold her hand, the world No 1 was finished. But within a few weeks Hingis and Molitor had settled their differences, got back to work and had a new plan and a new philosophy. One year on, Hingis is older, fitter and wiser.
Even so, it is one of those awkward questions that no one likes to raise with Hingis. Even players, such as Lindsay Davenport who regard themselves as friends, tend to skirt around the French Open issue when chatting with Switzerland's third favourite export. "Do we talk about it? Are you kidding?" Davenport laughed.
Opting for the diplomatic approach, the question is carefully phrased. Can you forgive the crowd for their behaviour when you go back to Paris? With a knowing smile, she gives the obvious answer: "Well, I hope they have forgiven me." Oh, yes, Hingis has grown up since last year. She may still be only 19 but she speaks with a worldliness far beyond her years. "Whenever I see a picture of my mum holding me and I'm crying, I think, 'what a baby'. "
"I think it was a great final, I played very well but I just didn't make it to the finish. I was getting tired because it was a very energetic match. It just got too much. There was so much pressure and I just got more tired than if I had played somebody else. You know, it was the French Open final and she was not an unknown player - I really wanted to win."
The fact that she fell apart for a couple of months does not seem to bother Hingis. Like every teenager, she got moody, did not want to listen to her mother and started straining for independence.
Her mother, quite wisely, let her get on with it. Looking back, Hingis thinks it may have done her good. "You have to take those steps in your life," she said. "Because my life is very much in the limelight and in the public eye, these things happen at tournaments. I've had it in the past and I'm sure there will be things in the future - for me it's not so dramatic.
"I think that was the first time it happened in my career but I'm past that, I'm over it and I'm just looking to the future. I stopped thinking about tennis for a while because I was not very much into it, I had other interests. But now I feel good about myself, I want to do it and I enjoy it."
Part of the process has involved moving her base from Trubbach, in Switzerland, to Saddlebrook, in Florida. And she loves it. "In Switzerland there's only me who is on top of everything," she said. "In the States there are football players, hockey players, basketball - you've got so many people from sport. When I'm there, people just come up to me and say: 'You're doing a great job, keep doing what you do.' They don't want anything, they just tell me. It's so nice."
Over the years, Hingis has learnt to assess people and situations in an instant. "Sometimes it's almost scary that I have people coming up to me and already I know where to put them by the first sentence they say. Either they want my autograph or picture or tickets - always something. Sometimes you just look through them because you don't want to talk to them. It's just nicer if you come and talk to me as if I wasn't someone special. I am a normal human being. Ask me anything; I can talk about things; I have no problem."
Such celebrity status does not make finding boyfriends any easier. The trend among the tennis players is for the high-profile partner - Anna Kournikova has ditched one ice-hockey player, Sergi Federov, in favour of another in Pavel Bure while Mary Pierce is engaged to Roberto Alomar, a baseball player. Hingis has had her romantic interludes with tennis players but is presently on the arm of Pavel Kubina, a defenseman for Tampa Bay Lightning.
"The attraction isn't just hockey players, it's more celebrities," she explained. "You have Andre and Steffi, Andre and Brooke before that. It's like Hollywood used to be, celebrities being together. I think it's because the lifestyles are similar and just understanding that is so important in a relationship.
"Other athletes, in general, understand what you have to do to be at the top. Well, sometimes. I'm one step ahead because I'm No 1. You have so little time to spend with the other person, to enjoy yourselves, and sometimes it's hard for the other person to understand. Even when the other one is a player too, but they are No 20 or No 30, it's still a different story."
For the first time in three years, Hingis does not hold a grand-slam title and for a young woman who has always known her place in the world - No 1 - that can be a humbling experience and one that has made her very aware of her rivals' problems. "When you are at the top you can say what you want and no one can really say anything against you," she said. "But when you are not at the top, so everything turns against you. Sometimes its not fair. You saw that with Jelena in Australia."
Dokic, having lost horribly in the first round in Melbourne, belittled her opponent and then turned on the Sanex WTA Tour and everyone else she could lay eyes on and accused them of working against her. "Of course she shouldn't have said those things," Hingis said, "but she's young, she has to learn. Also, it wasn't from her, it was more from her father. I spoke to her after it happened. She sometimes doesn't know what she has to say, but she has to learn."
Hingis reserves sympathy, too, for Kournikova, her former doubles partner and, despite the gossip, still her friend. Much talked about and photographed but still lacking a title on the tour, Kournikova has had a rough ride, according to Hingis.
"Every time you read the paper it's about the fact she hasn't won anything. It's not fun," she said. "The girls talk about her in the locker-room but I'd rather watch her because she's good-looking, she wears nice clothes, she presents herself well on the court and she's got a nice game. It's her decision what she does with her life and she's happy and that's good. Whether she wins or loses, it's good for tennis."
So now the older, wiser Hingis is on her way to Paris for the one grand-slam title she has never won and wants more than anything else. She says she misses the carefree days of the past but the teenage grin returns when she imagines her perfect day.
"It would be winning a grand slam, Paris or Wimbledon," she said. "Then celebrating, to take a picture with the trophy in front of the Sacre Coeur or Tower Bridge. I want that to be the perfect day because you are happy with yourself. You believe in yourself, you do something and you do it right." Her penance is done and it is time Hingis went back to Roland Garros.