In a world of glib generalisations, the Swiss are easily labelled. Bland is a virtue for them, meticulousness to be treasured, and to say they own the collective personality of a perfectly wound watch might be viewed as a compliment.

It is a simplification mocked by the reality that tennis' two most vivid practitioners in recent times, owners of a fertile imagination and a rich palette of strokes, have arrived from those shores.

Roger Federer and Martina Hingis are fluent in numerous tongues, furthermore their racquets speak a graceful language on court.

It is why even though the sporting comeback has become an attention-seeking device, Hingis' return to the tennis tour after three years of healing her injured feet is being received with delight. That she is given to speak her mind without thought of consequence only adds slyly to the appeal.

Emotion, not wisdom

Comebacks are products more of emotion than wisdom, the offspring of boredom, ego (damn, I can beat these girls!) and fear of the vast swamp of emptiness that greets the retired athlete. The alarm goes off at 5 a.m. but there is nowhere to go to.

Most comebacks do not work because youth is a cruel customer. It flees. The mind can still manufacture a competitiveness the body cannot fulfil.

No sport stands still, worse it accelerates, and Bjorn Borg for instance returned to a world he could not recognise and fled. Still for all that there is a desperately romantic notion to it all, the ageing practitioner in valorous search of her athletic self.

Hingis' return points to the staggering youth of modern sport, for she has won five Grand Slam titles, was ranked No.1 for 209 weeks, has been out for three years but is still only 25. Painful feet interrupted her career and no doubt she views it as an unfinished construction.

Always able to smell weakness at 40 paces, Hingis' nostrils are twitching with the scent of opportunity. Lindsay Davenport is 29 and world No.1. Mary Pierce at 30 has renewed her career with two Grand Slam finals this year. She must look in the mirror and believe, "that could be me".

Injury to knee, foot, abdomen, ribcage, wrist have haunted Sharapova, Davenport, the Williams sisters, Clijsters, Henin for long, and domination rarely extends beyond a few months before seditious bodies fail.

Last year three Russians sneaked in to win slams. This year four different women triumphed at the majors. None of this will have escaped Hingis.

Past comebacks

The Swiss needs allies and she will find some in the past. Monica Seles scarcely hit a ball for three years after being stabbed and returned to win a Slam; Jennifer Capriati was in mental limbo for five years, her confidence wounded it appeared beyond recovery, yet returned to win three Slams.

But not all comparisons are comforting. Seles' and Capriati's second comings took place in their very early 20s and every year older lengthens the odds, hardens the journey. Both were also women of unforgiving violence on court; Davenport and Pierce, too, own a weight of shot Hingis can only envy.

If anything, the argument over whether Hingis will be successful can be distilled into a single word: power.

Hingis owned a savant's ability to read a point three shots ahead, her stroke production was an exhibition in trickery, her tennis all intelligent design. It was also eventually the only refuge of the petite in a muscular universe.

In the early rounds her dexterity bewildered rivals, but as tournaments climaxed it seemed as fast as Hingis created, the faster her opponents destroyed. A child of art had become victim of Darwin's science of the survival of the fittest.

Beautifully unsuccessful

She played her last Slam in September 2002, but won her last Slam in January 1999, and towards the end she had lost, all her last four matches against Capriati, her last three to Serena, four of the last five to Venus, three of the last four to Davenport. She had become beautifully unsuccessful.

Hingis presumably must have done her study, observed the erratic shot-making of her peers, sweated to enhance her biceps. Still, she will have to run marathons on court and hope her feet are uncomplaining.

She will require a priest's unshakeable faith, for she will be chastised by girls unafraid of her legend and find her progress torturously examined by the media.

The great athlete is not easily reconciled to mediocrity and as Hingis said: "When you've been No.1 you want to compete with the best and possibly win Grand Slams".

But greatness fades and any resurrection requires time and she will need her rage yet also a new humility.

In six months will she find tennis has gone too far, its depth too great, her gifts inadequate? It would appear so. But sitting at home, stalked by these questions, Martina Hingis believes only if she returns to the court will a satisfactory answer be discovered.

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