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Battle of champions Hingis will square off with Seles in Chase final
Updated: Saturday November 18, 2000 6:49 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Perhaps fittingly, the last Chase Championships to be held at Madison Square Garden will be between two former champions. Monica Seles will be playing for the season-ending title for the first time since 1992. Martina Hingis is back in the final for the third straight year. "It's fantastic," Seles said. "I'm playing the No. 1 player in the world. There couldn't be a better stage to play." Both reached the title match by beating 19-year-old Russians. Hingis fought off her doubles partner, Anna Kournikova, 7-6 (2), 6-2 before Seles stopped the amazing run of Elena Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 (4). "I have a very good record against her," Hingis said of Seles. "Hopefully it's going to stay that way." Hingis and Kournikova later teamed to win their second straight Championships doubles title, defeating Nicole Arendt and Manon Bollegraf 6-2, 6-3. Since resuming their partnership, Hingis and Kournikova have won four of the five tournaments in which they've played, losing only in the final at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. The Championships, which have been staged in the Garden since 1979, will move to Munich, Germany, next year. Seles, who has won the Championships three times, the last in 1992, was in complete control as she breezed through the first set in 25 minutes. That was different for Dementieva, who had usually been the faster starter in her previous matches in her Garden debut. "Today I let Elena back in the second set," Seles said. "I didn't want to go into a third set." Always having to hold her serve to level the set, Seles pulled even at 6-6 when Dementieva made several unforced errors, then took the opening point of the tiebreak when her opponent buried a backhand in the middle of the net. They split the first four points before Seles took a 6-2 lead, quadruple match point. She needed several of them. Seles lost the first match point when she sailed a backhand service return long. Then she double-faulted before Dementieva, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open and silver medalist at the Sydney Olympics, found the net with her final backhand of the week. "It was tough to play against Monica, especially in the first set," Dementieva said. "She didn't let me play my game." Hingis vs. Kournikova was supposed to be the rivalry to match that of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. But while Hingis has ruled women's tennis since 1997, Kournikova has yet to win a tournament. Yet in their battle on the Garden's blue carpet, Kournikova matched Hingis stroke for stroke, game for game and service break for service break through the first 12 games of the match. They stood on the baseline and slugged it out, with Kournikova giving as much as she received. "We used the whole court," Kournikova said. "I felt confident and wasn't nervous at all." Kournikova got the first break, in the seventh game of the match. She set it up with a drop shot that the nimble Hingis got to. But when Hingis tried to lift the ball crosscourt, Kournikova was right there to snap a winning backhand volley. When she pounded a backhand winner on the next point, she had a 4-3 lead. It didn't last long, as Hingis broke right back at 30. It didn't stop there. They traded service breaks again in the ninth and 10th games. Then each held to send the set to a tiebreak. After Kournikova pulled even 2-2 by slapping a forehand into the corner, Hingis picked up the level of her game and won the next five points. "The tiebreak was the key," Hingis said. "Whoever won the first set had the advantage." That meant Hingis had the advantage, and she used it right away to break Kournikova at love to begin the second set. When Kournikova got the set back on serve by breaking her opponent in the fourth game, Hingis raised her game again. Kournikova muttered a begrudging "Yeah" when Hingis hit an inside-out forehand on the third point of the game. The Russian then double-faulted, one of five in the match for her, then slapped a forehand wide to give back the break. Hingis broke Kournikova again in the seventh game after the two battled through four deuces. Kournikova was upset when a shot by Hingis appeared to be long but was not called. That would have given Kournikova the game. Instead, Hingis eventually won the point, taking the game to deuce, then won the next two points to increase her lead to 5-2. On the changeover, Kournikova rapped her racket against the umpire's chair as she passed by, still visibly upset over what she felt was a non-call.
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