Czech mates: Hingis, Kubina play love game

By TOM JONES

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 15, 2000

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TAMPA -- Advice for Lightning players: If defenseman Pavel Kubina challenges you and your significant other to a little mixed doubles, you might want to pass.

That's because Kubina happens to be dating the world's top-ranked women's tennis player.

On the same day a newspaper story spread across his native Czech Republic, Kubina said he is dating Martina Hingis.

The two met almost a year ago, and Hingis has attended Lightning games this season. But it wasn't until the Blesk newspaper interviewed Kubina on Sunday by telephone that the Tampa Bay player revealed the two were dating.

Blesk quoted Kubina as saying, "I promised Martina I would come and see her at Roland Garros so we can win (the French Open) together for the first time."

Kubina laughed Monday when told of the quote, but said he and Hingis were "close friends."

"I never said anything about the French," he said. "We've played tennis together and we've gone to movies and dinners."

Kubina, 22, and Hingis, 19, have lots in common. They come from the Czech Republic, though Hingis is a citizen of Switzerland. Kubina is from the village of Celadna in northern Moravia, a couple of miles from Hingis' birthplace. And now the two live even closer, in Saddlebrook, a community north of Tampa in central Pasco County where other athletes such as tennis player Jennifer Capriati and Lightning defenseman (and Kubina's partner) Petr Svoboda live.

Blesk quoted Kubina saying Hingis' mother, Melanie, is happy about the couple and that he wants to take Hingis home to meet his parents this summer. "I'm not going to deny we've seen each other and that we are close friends," Kubina said. "But papers over there could have you saying anything. My dad called and said it's real big over there, that they have a picture with her on roller blades next to picture of me playing a game."

-- Information from Times wires was used in this report.

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