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Classic rivalry Davenport to meet Hingis in State Farm final
Posted: Sunday March 05, 2000 12:43 AM
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- Martina Hingis validated her No. 1 ranking again Saturday night when she put away Mary Pierce 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the final of the State Farm Women's Tennis Classic and resume her rivalry with Lindsay Davenport. Davenport, seeded second and ranked second in the world, routed Anna Kournikova 6-2, 6-2 in their afternoon semifinal. Davenport is 10-7 against Hingis and 7-3 against her in finals, including 4-0 since 1998. She beat the Swiss star in the Australian Open final in January, their last meeting and Hingis' last loss of the year. "I believe in my game more now," Hingis said. "I know I can play very well, as I showed against (Sandrine) Testud, so I'll just try to do it against Lindsay." Hingis' last two matches were against seeded players, and she won handily. Davenport believes she had a more difficult road to the final. She had to rally against unseeded Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles, coming from a set down to beat Capriati and trailing Seles 4-1 before winning the last five games of the second set in the quarterfinals. "Coming off the bat against two really tough opponents, maybe it sets you up to play better over the weekend," Davenport said about dominating the sixth-seeded Kournikova, who ranks 10th. "And I think that's what happened." Hingis, who took her first title of the year in Tokyo four weeks ago, won her seventh match in a row and 15th in 17 starts this season with unerring shots that frustrated the third-seeded Pierce, the world's sixth-ranked player. "I was just happy to close it out in straight sets," Hingis said. "She missed some easy shots. I did give her chances, but somehow I always felt like I could step it up if I really needed to." After four straight service breaks in the first set left them tied 3-3, Hingis held service twice and went into the 10th game with a lead. She broke the Frenchwoman's serve again, starting with a volley-ending smash of a lob. Pierce then double faulted and twice returned volleys into the net -- three of her 33 unforced errors to Hingis' 22 -- and lost without scoring in the final game. "One thing I do know is I need to improve my first serve more," said Pierce, who lost only six games in two previous matches. "When you play someone in the top, you can't give them second serves to attack you." In the second set, Pierce broke Hingis' service in the third game, but Hingis broke back to go up 3-2. She broke Pierce's serve again in the eighth game, overcoming a 30-love deficit with one of her 23 winners, followed by three unforced errors by Pierce, and ended it with a forehand volley winner. Davenport, the Wimbledon and Australian Open champion, is in her fifth straight final. She has won eight of her last 10, a spurt that earned her seven titles last year. Davenport broke Kournikova's serve in the first and seventh games of the first set. After Kournikova broke for the only time to tie the second set 2-2, Davenport broke back and swept the last four games. "When you come back right away -- and I broke her at love -- that probably deflated the momentum that she did have," Davenport said. "So it probably would have been tough if she had held on that service game and been up 3-2." Kournikova, seeded sixth, made 27 unforced errors. "The match was all the way hers," Kournikova said. "She had control over it, and I played not very smart tactically against her." Davenport had 13 aces in her previous match against Seles. She had three in the semifinal, but felt she served better after winning 70 percent of her first-serve points to 44 percent for Kournikova.
"Your game goes around your serve," she said. "If you're winning free points, you can relax more on your groundstrokes and go for more shots."
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