Martina Hingis Tries to Put Away Stalker

One of the crowned queens of the women's professional tennis world calmly testified in Miami as to the disturbing behavior of a delusional fan and suitor who has relentlessly pursued the athlete for more than 2 years. The 46-year-old Rajcevic, a Croatian-born Australian citizen, continuously sent Hingis flowers and love letters and also called her and dropped by uninvited to ring her doorbell. The disturbing pattern of behavior exhibited by Rajcevic forced Hingis to contact authorities and Rajcevic has been arrested numerous times as a result of his pursuit of the tennis star.

Despite her repeated attempts, both directly and through the authorities, to deter the stalker, he continued to persist and express his "love" for Martina. "He told me we were engaged," she said. "He was looking at me, smiling at me, but he was maybe looking through me. He wouldn't accept what I was telling him." Given the propensity for such misguided affection to turn ugly and the precedent established with the public stabbing several years ago of then-number-one in the world Monica Seles, Hingis has every reason to be scared. "I thought the obsession and love for me might turn into hate and aggression," she said.

Although Rajcevic's defense attorney claims that his client is in love with Hingis and has only been harmlessly persistent in courting her, the defendant's actions in the courtroom suggested otherwise. He stared with a sinister grin at Hingis on the stand and interrupted the proceedings on several occasions, prompting the judge to threaten him with being removed from the courtroom.