| | MELBOURNE, Australia -- Martina Hingis showed a bad-natured streak Friday after she suffered her first defeat at the Australian Open for four years in the final of the women's
doubles.
Top seeds Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs beat singles world No. 1 Hingis and French partner Mary Pierce 6-4 5-7 6-4 to claim
their first Grand Slam title.
|  | | Lisa Raymond, left, and Rennae Stubbs were all smiles after winning the Australian Open women's doubles title. |
It was the first match the 19-year-old Swiss star, winner of
three straight singles and doubles titles, had lost in Melbourne
since 1996.
So disgusted was Hingis with the defeat that she refused to address the crowd at the trophy ceremony, stoking memories of her petulant performance after Steffi Graf beat her in the singles final at the French Open last year.
Australian Stubbs and her American partner, who had narrowly
lost two semifinals to Hingis and partners in 1998 and 1999,
were angered by the teenager's reaction in the locker room.
"All she kept telling me was how bad she played today," Stubbs said. "How about a little credit as well?"
"It's very hard for these players sometimes to give their opponents credit just because they've had a bad day. It's so annoying," Stubbs said.
Hingis plays Lindsay Davenport of the United States in the singles final
on Saturday.
Raymond and Stubbs, regular doubles partners since 1996 with
11 titles together, stuck to their gameplan to drill the ball
to Pierce, but the Frenchwoman held her own.
It was Hingis who turned out to be the weak link on a center court she refers to as home.
"Now you know how other humans feel," Stubbs crowed at
Hingis, who dropped her service twice in the final set.
Hingis and Pierce, seeded third together, managed to fend
off two match points with big passing shots, leaving Stubbs flat
on the ground on the second match point.
But the top seeds eventually took the match when Hingis
slapped a forehand return long.
"Of course it's disappointing for me. I didn't play my
best," said Hingis.
The Swiss teenager first won the Australian Open doubles
title in 1997 with Natasha Zvereva, then again with Mirjana
Lucic, and last year with Anna Kournikova.
But this year was not to be. After claiming on Thursday, "I
beat all the players," Hingis said on Friday that losing the
doubles title was just as bad as losing in the singles.
"Of course I don't feel that great right now. You never want to lose, not in a Grand Slam final," she said. "I'm going to go out there and hit a little bit more. I don't want to finish off the day like this."
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