Hingis comeback pricks Kournikova's interest

SINGAPORE, June 21 (Reuters) Martina Hingis's return from chronic injury to the top of professional tennis has pricked the interest of another burn-out casualty, Anna Kournikova.

While Hingis returned full-time to the WTA tour this year after retiring in 2002 with ankle and foot injuries, Russia's Kournikova is still suffering back pain.

The 25-year-old has not given up hope of a return to the tour, though.

''It definitely sparked my curiosity,'' Kournikova said of the return of Hingis with whom she won the 2002 Australian Open doubles crown.

''It would be so cool,'' she said of the prospect of a return, before cautioning ''at the same time I look at it realistically.

''I have a bad back. I have a chronic spinal lumbar dysfunction.

That's the proper name for it,'' she told reporters on a conference call yesterday.

Kournikova, a former world number one doubles player who was ranked in the top 20 in singles from 1998 to 2000, has not played on the tour since cutting her 2003 season short due to the back injury.

Credited with inspiring a generation of Russian women to become world-beaters in tennis, much was made of her inability to win a singles title in nine years on the tour.

GLAMOROUS Her return would be welcomed by the marketers and publicists, though. Despite her lack of titles, Kournikova's glamorous appearance won her an army of fans worldwide.

She was a regular on year-end ''most beautiful'' lists as well as constantly sought for television shows and red-carpet appearances.

While the Wimbledon championships takes place next month, the grand slam at which she reached the semi-finals on her debut in 1997, Kournikova will be playing US-based World Team Tennis.

The Russian is set to play for Sacramento in five matches and is confident it will not set back her hopes for a return to fitness.

''It's not one of those things that bothers you on a day-to-day basis,'' she said of her injury. ''If I exercise a little too much, it does bother me. The main problem is if I start training for like six hours a day on a professional level, that's when it's really troubled.

''If I exercise one or two hours a day, it doesn't bother me at all.

''(World Team Tennis is) very competitive, but it's at a level for me physically personally that it's a very short amount of time.

My back doesn't start to get bad.'' She is still unsure if, or when, she may be able to return to the sport full-time.

''Well, it's very hard to say right now,'' she told reporters.

''I don't know exactly what the goal is right now. I'm just kind of taking a break, taking it a day or month at a time.

''Believe me, I would like to know also. If I would have known, I already would have made some kind of statement or announcement or something because, as you can imagine, I get these questions all the time.

''It's also very hard for me. Really, I want to be honest and I don't want to raise anybody's expectations or even my expectations.'' Reuters AY GC1038