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In control Hingis, Davenport advance to Toray Pan Pacific semis
Updated: Friday February 02, 2001 8:32 AM
TOKYO (AP) -- Defending champion and top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland defeated Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-0, 5-7, 6-2 on Friday, advancing to the semifinals in the Toray Pan Pacific Open, a WTA Tour event. In another quarterfinals match, second-seed Lindsay Davenport breezed past Iva Majoli of Croatia 6-2, 6-0. In the semifinals Saturday, Hingis takes on eighth-seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria, a 6-1, 7-6 (1) winner over Japanese wild-card entrant Shinobu Asagoe. Hingis is top-ranked in the world to Maleeva's 25th. Davenport, ranked second only to Hingis, will meet third-seeded Russian Anna Kournikova, who beat Anne-Gaelle Sidot of France 7-6 (4), 6-2. Sidot is the world's No. 31 player. The 20-year-old Hingis was in control in the first set, running Japan's top player in rallies, tapping her out with volleys and soft approach shots and sharp-shooting down the lines. Sugiyama, ranked a remote 49th in the singles but top positioned ahead of No. 2 Hingis in the doubles rankings, came back and ruled the second set, taking four games in an exchange of seven breaks. In the final set, the light-footed Hingis regained her rhythm and showed she was the steadier player, easily breaking the first game. Though broken in the next game after a couple of deuces, Hingis streaked through the next four games, capitalizing on Sugiyama's erratic returns. After Sugiyama won her service game, Hingis held her own in the eighth to close out a 96-minute duel. "The line calls? Well, you shouldn't get distracted by the line calls, I mean, those were pretty close calls," Hingis said of her setback in the second set. "I think that was more of me losing concentration and focus." For instance, "I was serving for the match at 5-4 and 30-all, so I should have finished it off there, but she played a few good points and she was still hanging in there. I have to give her credit for that," Hingis said. Sugiyama said, "Even when I was down 0-6 and then 2-4, I didn't think that my game was actually that bad, and so I wasn't in such a state of panic, and the service games were close. But I just couldn't convert on the chances and I think that was the main difference. "As you could say for most top players, the key is consistency and really making the critical points, for example, the first serves and percentage of the critical points that she could make under pressure." It was Hingis' fifth win in their six matches since first meeting in the 1996 Toray on the same carpet court of Metropolitan Gymnasium. Sugiyama's only triumph so far came in the round of 32 at the 1996 Olympics. It was the first time reaching the Toray semifinals in three years for Davenport, who says she has always enjoyed coming to Tokyo. Last year, Davenport skipped the tournament with leg injuries. In 1999, she was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Amanda Coetzer of South Africa. That loss cost Davenport her No. 1 world ranking, with Hingis winning her second Toray title and getting back the top position. "I thought I played a great match," said Davenport, "It's rare to win that easily any more because other players are so good." "If I can play like that I should win [tomorrow]," she added. "But Anna hits the ball very hard and very flat, so that's very hard to control, especially on this surface. But I will try to concentrate on serving well again and trying to break her serve and attack on her second serve." Hingis is seeking her third Toray crown. She first won the title in 1997, and Davenport triumphed in between. The US$1.19 million tournament offers a top prize of US$175,000 in the singles and US$55,000 each to the winners of the doubles.
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