Hingis turned the tennis court into a perfect world in streaking through the 1997 season with a 37-0 start, winning all six tournaments she played. Poised to prolong perfection and win her first French Open, Hingis ran into an unexpected road block as the harder-hitting Majoli slammed the Swiss teenager to become the first Croatian Grand Slam champion and (at the time) the lowest-seeded woman in the Open era to master a major.
"I was just feeling in control the whole time,'' Majoli said. ''Before the match, I felt like this was it; this could be the one.''
During the first four months of her stellar season, Hingis suffered a confidence crisis about as often as Atlas visits a chiropractor, but she fell from her horse and suffered a knee injury that required arthroscopic surgery in April, limiting her clay-court preparation to Hilton Head’s green Har-Tru, a distinctly different type of clay than Roland Garros' terre battue. Still, when the world No. 1 defeated three-time French Open champion Monica Seles in a hard-fought semifinal (6-7 (2), 7-5, 6-4), she entered the title match as an overwhelming favorite against the ninth-seeded Majoli, who scored four consecutive three-set wins, including victories over No. 5 Lindsay Davenport and No. 11 Amanda Coetzer en route to her first major final.
Showing killer instinct from the onset, Majoli punished Hingis’ second serve. Hingis hung tough in saving six break points to hold in the fifth game, but the skittish top seed double faulted to face a ninth break point in the seventh game. Majoli then cracked a forehand winner into the corner to break for a 4-3 lead. The underdog sustained her determination throughout the match, winning nine of the final 12 games to capture her first and only Grand Slam title.
"I was feeling like an underdog, but that helped,'' said Majoli afterward. ''I knew she was confident, but I knew she's not unbeatable. My plan was just to attack her serve, put more pressure on her forehand, just be aggressive. Luckily, today everything worked. When we were at the podium, Martina came and told me, 'You just killed me today.'"
Hingis' creative court sense, flair for finesse, and ability to create absurd angles were elements of her distinctive style that made her the youngest world No. 1 in tennis history. Hings’ loss to Majoli spoiled her quest for the Grand Slam—she would win the other three majors that season and conclude 1997 with an incredible 75-5 record.
“I don’t know why, but something wasn’t going the right way I wanted it on the court,” Hingis said after the loss. “If something didn’t work out before, I always had another weapon to get out of the pressure, but today, I didn’t have anything and she was just better.”
Though she reached the French Open final two years later and served for the championship at 5-4 in the second set, Hingis became unnerved by the crowd that jeered her for questioning a line call. A resilient Steffi Graf, who stormed back for a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory, called it “the biggest win I’ve ever had.” Roland Garros is the only major Hingis did not win.
