Retired tennis star Martina Hingis will play exhibition matches in Liverpool in June, her first appearance on court since her two-year ban for a positive test for cocaine at last year's Wimbledon.
Banned from official competition, Hingis announced on Tuesday she will play in three exhibition matches from June 13-15 during the unofficial Liverpool International, which features ATP, WTA players and a Legends division two weeks before Wimbledon.
Two other former Wimbledon champions Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Cash are also entered.
The International Tennis Federation found Hingis guilty of the doping violation in January, two months after she announced her retirement when the positive doping test was revealed. She's suspended until Sept. 30, 2009.
The five-time Grand Slam champion has protested her innocence, but hasn't sought to overturn the ruling or punishment.
At a media conference in Liverpool to announce her participation, a live and crackly telephone call with Hingis was relayed, but questions were restricted to a selected radio personality.
"She wants to give something back to the game," tournament director Anders Borg told The Associated Press. "Her life goes on and she wants to be part of the exhibition circuit."
Borg believes Hingis didn't cheat and won't be a bad role model for children at the grasscourt event.
"She knows within herself that she hasn't taken anything and I just find it amazing she has tested more than 200 tests in her career and nothing has ever come up," he said. "Then they find a drug that is not performance-enhancing at all, allegedly taken in the midst of Wimbledon, which I find unbelievable and she denies."
Borg said Hingis still has a lot to offer the game, and could still return to competitive action.
"She's incredibly still only 27 years old," Borg said. "She's still very young and capable of doing it. She reached No 4 on her second comeback. I think she's easily a top-10 player again if she wants to. Let's hope she considers it."
Hingis won her five Grand Slams before she was 19, and spent 209 weeks at No 1.
(Agencies via China Daily March 6, 2008)