MARTINA HINGIS finds herself in a reverse Bogart situation. At least he always had Paris. Hingis has never had Paris. And the winning of the French Open tennis tournament is rather more than a gap on her CV. It is a series of livid, unhealed scars. When she dies, they'll find the word Paris inscribed on her heart. In 1997 she was the great breath of fresh air: youth and talent and charm, and a charming sense of balance and sanity as well. The world of tennis was there for the taking, and she took and smiled and smiled and took, as if it were all her due.
And she pulled off the grand slam that year, or at least she should have done. The sole omission was Paris. She came into the tournament short of fitness because she had fallen off a horse, as people do. And she lost the final to (whatever happened to?) Iva Majoli.
She seemed set to dominate for years, except that life and sport aren't always like that. She never did win Paris. And last year, in the final, she went pop, and left in a storm of tears and pouts. She went on to sack her mother for Wimbledon, where she went out in the first round.
She now holds no grand-slam titles at all. And yesterday, if you caught her match on BBC against Ruxandra Dragomir and looked for the smile, you looked in vain. Instead, you saw a woman perhaps a little past her prime, struggling for her youthful certainty. For Hingis will be 20 in September. Small wonder that she feels the sands of time running out.
Every game that she plays at Paris this year, and perhaps forever, will be haunted by that terrible tantrum of last year. Most of us, when we have our teenage attacks of the sulky stamps, do so in front of an audience of a parent or two. It is the sad lot of tennis queens to scream about the right to be out after midnight even on a school night in front of an audience of a billion.
So Hingis has boos wherever she goes in Paris. Annabel Croft, recruited for Eurosport's coverage and as self-certain in front of the camera as she was racked with self-doubt on the tennis court, said that Hingis was booed every time she walked on court, and that at times her every shot was being booed in the warm-up.
Boos come whenever she queries a line call. It was, as ever, a line call that prompted the histrionics of last year. Every time she raises her eyebrow at the umpire, she calls into being a storm of boos. More on eyebrows in a moment.
It is hard to say whether Hingis draws strength from all this, or whether it destroys her. We have seen grand- slam events blown because of curious distractions. Monica Seles once lost a Wimbledon that seemed to be hers for the taking when she tried to win without grunting.
Hingis won her fourth-round match against Dragomir, of Romania, and it was great stuff - "a splendid advertisement for the women's game," John Inverdale said, patronisingly. I've never heard anyone say that a match was "a great advertisement for the men's game". Good tennis is good tennis, in frocks or jocks.
Dragomir is a player to drive coaches to despair: wonderfully graceful and with a stunning variety of shots, but lacking the talent to win big matches. She took the middle set 6-0 and Hingis does not often get whitewashed, certainly not from being out-thought.
Either Hingis has got her bad match out of her system and will now win, or she is so desperate to take this tournament that she will never last through the second week. Virginia Wade made a good point on the BBC. Hingis finished very strongly, she said. And that is what you take into the next round.
A great change has come over Hingis since that happy, laughing teenager came to our screens in her golden year of 1997. The smile has gone. The attempts to out-glamourise Anna Kournikova, her former doubles partner, have gone.
Now she looks like Olive Oyl, with her high hairline and her eyebrows trimmed into points. Well, what else is there to do in all those long, empty hours in hotels around the world, save get out the eyebrow tweezers?
Her ability to think on her feet is unimpaired, and that remains her greatest strength. Ultimately, Dragomir was outthought in the final set, and also out-determined, by a player with a point to prove.
Hingis's mental impregnability is a thing of the past, but her other weapons remain considerable. She will be a big player in our summer of sport.