Serena to Face Hingis in Semifinal

`Skill of Hingis, or The Power of Williams`

Is `Girl from Alps` Martina Hingis (Swiss) able to preserve her pride as world`s No. 1?

Hingis has been regarded as `a idiosyncratic player` in women`s tennis, which has recently been dominated by the powerful players with man-like physical condition.

Since she has a common size with a height of 1m 70 and a weight of 59.1 kg, Hingis looks very slender when she stands on the court along with huge figures over 1m80 such as Lindsay Davenport of 1m 88 high. In spite of her weak power, Hingis has firmly maintained the first place in the world for 203 weeks with the brilliant technique, rich experience, and mature court management.

However, as she has failed to capture a title for 10 major tournaments since the Australian Open in 1999, Hingis had to be told the sarcastic criticism that she is nothing but `a gimcrack No. 1` overwhelmed by the power tennis.

In the quarterfinal of the US Open, the last grand slam of this year, at the USTA National Tennis Court, Flushing Meadows, New York, top seed Martina Hingis crushed Czech upstart Daja Bedanova (18) ranked in the 37th place, 2-0 (6-2, 6-0) only for 42 minutes, and moved into the semifinals on Tuesday.

Hingis, who was born in Czech Republic and immigrated to Swiss, gave a harsh lesson to Bedanova, who had once been her pupil and a training partner.

Sixth consecutive semifinalist in this event, Hingis faces physically stronger Serena Williams (USA) in the threshold for the final.

Elastic Serena Williams, the 1999 champion here, defeated the 1997 champion Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 6-7(7), 7-5 in a two-hour fourteen-minute battle in the quarterfinal.

While the main weapon of Hingis is the accurate strokes, Williams has the advantage with the strong serves whose velocity reaches 190 km per hour. Hingis said, ``It`s goint to be tough. But I am so confident of myself, and I am in the best condition. I think I have a chance.`` Williams also boldly said, ``I participated in this tournament to earn the title. I`m gonna win two more matches to grab a trophy.`` Williams had won over Hingis 2-0 in the final here in 1999.

`An iron woman on the court` Martina Navratilova said that ``Williams, who is taller and stronger than anybody else, improved the level of women`s tennis. On the other hand, Hingis has shown the white feather in service.``

In fourth round of men`s single, No. 1 seed Gustavo Kuerten (Brazil) advanced to the quarterfinals, beating world`s 40th place Albert Costa (Spain), 3-0 (6-4, 6-4, 7-6) thanks to the strong serves. Kuerten captured 18 serve aces with no double fault, and will face 7 seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Russia) in a quarterfinal.

Kim Jong-Seok kjs0123@donga.com