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Ousted Frazier stuns top-ranked Hingis at Acura Classic
CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) -- Unheralded Amy Frazier turned in a dominating performance and stunned top-ranked Martina Hingis 6-3, 6-3 Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the $535,000 Acura Classic. Frazier, ranked 26th, peppered Hingis with powerful groundstrokes as she easily handled the 19-year-old. The victory was Frazier's first against a top-ranked player. "I'm very shocked and very happy with the way I played," Frazier said. "It was just one of the days. I felt really good and everything was just going my way." The upset scuttled the expected semifinal matchup between Hingis and third-ranked Venus Williams, who advanced with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Conchita Martinez. Hingis, winner of five Grand Slam titles, had never lost in four career meetings against Frazier. When it became apparent midway through the first set that Frazier was in a groove, Hingis began trying various strategies to throw her off. She came to the net, hit with more top spin, even threw in a few moon balls. But nothing seemed to bother Frazier. "She played very well," Hingis said. "In the beginning, I had a lot of opportunities not to let her in. That was my mistake." After Frazier took the first set, she began pounding winners with more authority. Ahead 3-2, Frazier scored one of her six breaks against Hingis when she hit a running forehand winner off a drop shot. "I tried pretty much everything," Hingis said. "She just wouldn't miss anything." After each player held serve, Frazier closed out the match when Hingis' drop shot fell into the net. In other second-round matches, Nathalie Tauziat of France beat Russia's Elena Likhovtseva 6-1, 6-2 and Sandrine Testud of France was a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Tatiana Panova of Russia. Williams toyed with Martinez as she broke her serve in all eight games. The reigning Wimbledon champion seemed bored at times during the match. "My mind did wander sometimes," Williams said of the 51-minute match. "I was thinking about different things. I felt comfortable and confident, maybe that's the reason I missed a few shots." The match was so sloppy in the first set, that when Williams won her service game to go ahead 3-1, it was the only time neither player's serve was broken. "I was a little erratic," Williams said. "In the first set, I was having a tough time holding serve because there was too much sun out there. After I looked up in the sun, I couldn't see the ground strokes." Martinez knew early on that she had virtually no chance to beat the hard-hitting Williams. The Spaniard, whose serve has always been the weakest part of her game, hit most of her first serves slower than Williams' average second serve. "Until I can figure out how I can serve better," she said, "it's going to be difficult to beat some of the top player." Martinez, hampered by shoulder and wrist injuries, was so ineffective that she won just 18 of 55 points on her serve. Once Williams got her ground strokes straightened out in the second set, it was merely a matter of how long it would take to finish off the sixth-ranked Martinez. "She's hitting the ball very hard," said Martinez, the French Open runner-up. "She overpowered me, for sure."
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