Hingis, Martinez Advance To Final Defending Australian Open Champion Will Tangle With Ex-Wimbledon Winner

A year after Martina Hingis started her surge to the top of women’s tennis by capturing the Australian Open, she’s poised to extend her rule as she reached the final today of her fifth straight Grand Slam tournament.

Hingis’ 6-1, 2-6, 6-1 triumph over Anke Huber put the 17-year-old from Switzerland into the championship match Friday against former Wimbledon champ Conchita Martinez, a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victor over second-seeded Lindsay Davenport.

Hingis, who also won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year and was runner-up in the French Open, almost always has a tough time against Huber. Eight of their nine matches have gone three sets, though Huber has won only one of those.

Hingis glided through the first set and took a 2-0 lead in the second before Huber caught fire. Chasing down Hingis’ best shots, drilling winners from both sides, Huber ran off seven straight games to take the set and a 1-0 lead in the third.

But if anything about Hingis distinguishes her game, it’s her ability to find a way out of trouble and play steadily while keeping pressure on her opponents. She did that with deep baseline shots close to the lines, and watched Huber try to respond in kind.

Huber began to fall apart when she whacked an overhead wide to 15-40 on her serve in the third game, then netted a backhand for the break and flung her racket hard to the court.

When Huber fell behind 5-1, she lofted a ball high in the air in disgust and it came down square in the center of a line judge’s hat. The crowd laughed, but not the umpire, who issued her a warning.

Huber, who sprayed 40 unforced errors to Hingis’ 16, ended her misery by double-faulting twice in the final game and missing a couple of forehands, giving Hingis 20 of the last 24 points.

Martinez and Davenport have a way of bringing out the worst in each other in long rallies, and for nearly 2 hours they performed as if trying to see who could waste more chances or mis-hit the ball more often.

“It was annoying to me,” Davenport said. “So many games went so long. I felt like it suited her and not me. The whole match was a little frustrating.”

Davenport racked up 66 unforced errors, double the number Martinez had.

Martinez was far from scintillating. The 1994 Wimbledon champion, seeking to gain her second Grand Slam title, lumbered around the court intent on simply keeping the ball in play and letting Davenport make mistakes. Between moonballs and slow slices, Martinez played a defensive match that was yawningly tedious.

Martinez dropped to her knees and raised her arms at the end, and the sleepy crowd responded with polite applause.

“I think I’m ready, I’m more ready than ever,” to win another major title, she said.