Martina Hingis gave old rival Mary Pierce a day to forget as she assuredly marched a step closer to retaining her Australian Open tennis title in Melbourne yesterday. The 17-year-old world number one beat Pierce, the fifth seed, 6-2, 6-3 in the quarter-final and was stunned at the ease with which she won.
"I just played very well from the beginning. She just made so many unforced errors, I don't know what happened to her," Hingis said.
She was playing German 10th seed Anke Huber in today's semi-final after Huber downed Spain's Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in two tough sets.
Hingis, who won three of the four Grand Slams last year, said she had been nervous going into the match because of Pierce's past victories.
Although Hingis beat Pierce in straight sets in last year's Australian Open final, her first major title, Pierce leads 4-3 in career wins including victory in the quarter-finals of the WTA Tour Championships in New York last November.
Yesterday, while Pierce hit everything out of court or into the net, Hingis stepped up her game.
Even when something did go wrong, the teenage number one came out on top. One Pierce return of service clipped the net and went over. Hingis became tangled in the net but still tipped the ball over to win the point.
It was 61 minutes of agony for the 23-year-old French number one. The two sets had virtually identical starts, each player losing her serve, but the teenager regaining her composure first.
The French fifth seed normally has the more powerful serve, but it was Hingis who cheekily hit five aces to her rival's two.
"I think I played the worst match of the tournament and unfortunately it was today," said Pierce.
"I wasn't moving enough. My legs just weren't there, my serve wasn't there and that's why I made so many unforced errors."
"Those kind of days are important to get through and to win. But when you are playing against someone like Martina, who is number one, it is difficult to beat them because only a little thing makes a big difference."
Hingis said: "It's satisfying if you go out there and you know you are the big champ from last year and the crowd is behind me. It feels just great."
But she said going into last year's Grand Slam season in Australia had been easier.
"Nobody really expected me to do that well. I just took it easy, step by step, and all of a sudden I was in the finals and I won the tournament."
Huber made Sanchez Vicario her second seeded victim as she pushed through to the semi-finals.
"She is still tough to beat, she is fighting, so for me, it is quite a big victory," Huber said after beating the powerful Spanish seventh seed 7-6 (9/7), 7-5.
Huber had eliminated South African third seed Amanda Coetzer in three sets in the fourth round.
The win over Sanchez Vicario was only the German's second in 12 encounters with the Spaniard, who fought off two match points before going down in one hour and 55 minutes.
"I played from the beginning the way I wanted to play and I was patient and I waited for my chances," Huber said.
But her frustration grew in the second set as a series of double faults hampered her ability to close out the match at 5-4.
"I was worried a little bit (about it going into a third set) because we had some long rallies where we both had to run a lot so I got a little bit tired at the end of the second set."
Sanchez Vicario came out firing in the first set but her confidence and aggression waned and her unforced error count grew.
Riding high on her victory at the warm-up Sydney International last month, the Spaniard said this week she was playing some of the best tennis of her career - a judgment her defeat did not alter. "I think it was a very close match . . . I had my opportunities and I probably did not take them all," Sanchez Vicario said.
Men's Singles - Quarter-finals (prefix number denotes seeding): (9) M Rios (Chile) bt A Berasategui (Spain) 6-7 (6/8) 6-4 6-4 6-0; N Escude (Fra) bt N Kiefer (Ger) 4-6 3-6 6-4 6-1 62.
Women's Singles: Quarter-finals: (10) A Huber (Ger) bt (7) A Sanchez-Vicario (Spa) 7-6 (9/7) 7-5; (1) M Hingis (Swi) bt (5) M Pierce (Fra) 6-2 6-3.
Mixed Doubles: Second round: A Kitinov/E Melicharova (Mkd/Cze) bt J Grabb/K Kunce (USA/Aus) 6-4 7-5.
Mixed Doubles: Second round: J Gimelstob/V Williams (USA/USA) bt M Knowles/ A Kournikova (Bah/Rus) 7-5 6-2; third round: M Mirnyi/E Likhovtseva (Bel/Rus) bt A Florent/N Zvereva (Aus/Bel) 6-3 6-2.
