Hingis Issues A Reminder No. 1 Remains Ready To Fight Off All Pretenders

Being neither illiterate nor unaware of which way the wind blows, Martina Hingis knows her name doesn’t appear among many U.S. Open predictions, supplanted instead by Venus, Serena, or Lindsay Davenport.

Between them, the Williams sisters and Davenport have won four of the past five Grand Slams, leaving Hingis to have to remember all the way back to the 1999 Australian for her last slam victory. But after beating first-round opponent Alani Jidkova, 6-3, 6-1, in 57 minutes Monday, Hingis defended her status as the world’s top-ranked player.

“I have five grand slams,” she said. “Venus and Serena each have one. Lindsay maybe now has three because she played better. But she’s 24. The Williamses, they’re my age. I think so far, I’ve been better than them. It’s the consistency, that’s what counts to be No. 1… .

“I think sometimes people don’t exactly understand my game, why I’m up here. I don’t hit the ball as hard as Venus or some of these girls, but I’ve got a pretty good allaround game. I think now I’ve survived quite a bit, and I can improve my game again.”

It will probably be next week before she has to back up those words, since she won’t have a chance to meet Venus Williams until the semifinals, and Davenport and Serena Williams are in the other half of the draw.

A stormy morning provided the biggest upset of the day, interrupting early matches for over two hours.

Jennifer Capriati, seeded 15th, beat her colleagues to Round 2 with a quick 6-4, 6-0 disposal of Emmanuelle Gaglairdi, followed by No. 10 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario’s threeset comeback against Joannette Kruger.

On the men’s side, fourth-seeded Pete Sampras ousted Martin Damm, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5, 6-4. And fifth-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov needed almost 3 hours to squeeze past Orlin Stanoytchev. Hidden away by the USTA on Court 11 - which offers 1,604 seats - Kafelnikov rallied to win, 6-7 (5-7), 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-3.

No. 11 Tim Henman beat Fernando Vicente in one hour and 45 minutes, and Justin Gimmelstob advanced with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Christophe Rochus.

Sanchez-Vicario seemed to benefit the most from the inclement weather “I definitely think the rain helped me to realize a lot what I was doing wrong, and I came back hitting the ball well again in the beginning of the second set,” she said.

The third set looked in doubt when Kruger broke Sanchez-Vicario at 5-4 to serve for the match, but Sanchez-Vicario won the next two games, then let Kruger back in to force a tie-breaker. Kruger won the first point when she stretched out to slice a dropshot, and won another point on a backhand down the line.

But after struggling to assert herself for over 2 hours and 15 minutes, SanchezVicario wrapped up the last points in a matter of minutes - which left her open to explain how she might fare against Venus Williams, a possible quarterfinal opponent.

“Well, I didn’t even know that I was on Venus’ draw,” she said, “I never look at the draw. Besides, before we get there, there is more matches for both of us.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: AT A GLANCE U.S. Open NEW YORK - Highlights of Monday’s play at the $15 million U.S. Open tennis championships: Weather: Mostly cloudy and humid with periods of rain and a high temperature of 77.

Attendance: Day session: 28,415. Night session: 19,193. Total: 47,608.

Men’s results: No. 1 Andre Agassi, No. 4 Pete Sampras, No. 5 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, No. 9 Lleyton Hewitt, No. 11 Tim Henman, No. 13 Franco Squillari and No. 16 Nicolas Lapentti won first-round matches.

Women’s results: No. 1 Martina Hingis, No. 3 Venus Williams, No. 6 Monica Seles, No. 8 Nathalie Tauziat, No. 9 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, No. 11 Sandrine Testud, No. 13 Amanda Coetzer and No. 15 Jennifer Capriati advanced to the second round. No seeded players, male or female, lost.

Stats of the day: Pete Sampras, at No. 4, has his lowest U.S. Open seeding since 1991. No. 15 Jennifer Capriati is seeded for the first time since 1993.

Quote of the day: “I’m feeling good about my tennis.” - Jennifer Capriati.