Motto at La Costa: No Pain, No Gain

There was something about Mary Pierce’s hand.

There was also something about Venus Williams’ knee.

Injuries were on a collision course at the Toshiba Tennis Classic on Friday at the La Costa Resort and Spa. This time, the hand was stronger than the knee. Pierce defeated the third-seeded Williams, 2-6, 7-6 (7-3), 4-0 (retired), in the quarterfinals and plays top-seeded Martina Hingis tonight in the semifinals.

Fourth-seeded Monica Seles is in discomfort--suffering from a sore back--but she defeated Ai Sugiyama of Japan, 6-4, 6-3, and will face second-seeded Lindsay Davenport in the first semifinal. Davenport beat eighth-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France, 6-4, 6-3.

The walking wounded, however, were the story, especially in the Pierce-Williams match. Oddly enough, the unseeded Pierce needed medical treatment and nearly quit in the second set because of a sore hand. She decided to play one more game, and the pain subsided.

The pain must have traveled across the net to Williams. It is the first time Williams has retired because of injury in a tour match this year, and second in her short career.

Williams is only 18, but the sight of a bandage on her left knee is becoming about as familiar as the beads in her hair. She said she is suffering from tendinitis, needing a three-minute injury timeout near the end of the second set and consistent attention from the tour trainer on the ensuing changeovers.

“I thought I could maybe still win the match, but I found I was living in a false reality,” Williams said. “And when I realized that, I quit.”

Afterward, Pierce walked over to her side of the court and shook hands.

“Venus is different,” said Pierce. “She just went over and started putting her racket in the bag. And her dad was at the side of the court. Usually, you shake the chair umpire’s hand and shake the player’s hand.

“But she was probably so distraught or maybe in pain, she just, I don’t know.”

Williams looked startled to see Pierce.

“She just turned around and she was kind of surprised I was standing there,” Pierce said. “I said, ‘Sorry about that,’ and she said, ‘Good match.’ I said, ‘Are you OK?’ and she said, ‘I’m fine.’ ”

The tricky knee is a tricky subject with Williams. She needed treatment for her left leg during the final at Stanford against Davenport. At first, she stressed that this injury was different.

After a series of questions, pressing for more information, she amended her previous statement.

“It’s sort of related, I suppose,” she said. “It’s related in which I was suffering last week and also this week. And I think that’s the last question I want to answer about my knee.”

Williams has been troubled by her left leg periodically in 1998 but would not confirm whether her father or a doctor told her to skip this event. She downplayed the severity of the injury and its impact on her U.S. Open preparation.

“Of course I want to be healthy in the near future,” she said. “I don’t think it’s any problem that’s going to hold me back. I just think it’s something temporary right now. If I was older, like 29 or 30, I would think this was pretty serious.”

Said Pierce: “It’s so funny, anything can happen in tennis. One minute my hand is hurting, the next minute I’m feeling better and she gets injured after this one drop shot I hit.”

For Pierce, the final test was to stay focused once it became clear Williams was having problems.

“I didn’t think she was going to stop after the [second] set,” Pierce said. “She was able to run. She ran down some great balls. I’ve seen her play matches on TV where she was taped up, or she was cramping in Australia in Sydney, and she kept playing and she came through and won the match.”

Said Williams: “I think if I wasn’t hurt, I would have won that match. I did what I could and couldn’t go on. On a better day, things would have been different. It probably would have been a mark on the chalkboard for me.”

The other injured player, Seles, did not downplay her injury. She has been suffering from a stiff back ever since the last day of Fed Cup action in Spain last month.

It started when she was sitting on a bench without back support, watching the final singles match and the doubles. The plane ride from Madrid to London to San Francisco exacerbated the condition.

Now, she is thinking of skipping next week’s tournament at Manhattan Beach.

“I’ve played through so many matches through pain and I played through two months when I had shin splints and couldn’t walk,” she said. “It’s not something that I think it’s smart to do.”

TODAY’S SEMIFINALS

Lindsay Davenport (2) vs. Monica Seles (4), 1 p.m.

Martina Hingis (1) vs. Mary Pierce, 7 p.m.