With Victory, Hingis Has a Perfect Retort

The motivating words did not come from her coach and mother, or from anyone else in her entourage.

Martina Hingis was laughing when she recalled watching television earlier this week. She was getting ready to play her night doubles match and there was Richard Williams, talking about his youngest daughter, Serena.

“I just would like to see Serena play Hingis,” he was saying. “I think Serena would kick her . . . going and coming.”

Game, set and match.

If Hingis, at times, has been lacking drive in 1998, that was no problem Friday. Although she laughed about the trash-talking later, the 17-year-old Hingis took it seriously on the court, defeating Serena Williams, 6-4, 6-1, in only 65 minutes in the Acura Classic quarterfinals at Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach.

“Well, I didn’t think she did it,” Hingis said, laughing. “I saw it when he said that on TV. I said, ‘OK, we’ll see what is going to happen.’ ”

Williams made the comments Tuesday night, so Hingis had a few days to think about a potential match against the 16-year-old Serena. And she was more than willing to say that Richard Williams’ words had helped her advance to today’s semifinal match against third-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain.

“Once somebody says that about a player, he should sometimes also watch his mouth,” Hingis said. “I think they are going to be a little bit quiet now, for a while.”

Hingis giggled about the word that was deleted.

“All of a sudden they show the news and then there was this speech,” she said. “And [Williams] said, ‘Kick her . . . .’ I was like, ‘Ha, ha.’

“I don’t think it’s Serena’s fault. She’s a nice girl. I know her pretty well from the other tournaments. Actually, when she’s alone, I like her. Just the people around her, sometimes they talk too much.”

Serena Williams deferred questions about the matter to her father.

But what she ran into was the last thing she needed in only her third match since Wimbledon: an alert and razor-sharp Hingis. The combination of a motivated Hingis and an inconsistent Williams turned the highly anticipated quarterfinal into a routine match.

Williams struggled, spraying shots, and converted only one of seven break-point opportunities. Hingis broke her serve four times, twice in each set.

“I started making too many mistakes, both in the first and second sets,” Williams said. “I just didn’t stick to my plan. My plan was not to miss and I totally didn’t do that. When I went out there, I made way too many errors from the first game to the last game. Usually I’m very consistent. I didn’t play well at all today.”

Hingis, who fought off two match points against Williams in their first meeting at the Lipton tournament in March, says the 21st-ranked Williams is still very much a work in progress.

“She’s very aggressive from the first point on, but only for two shots,” Hingis said. “She’s got a great serve and a first return. But then she slows down from fifth gear to No. 2 or 3. I was just very focused from beginning on.”

Williams is not playing any more tournaments before the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 31.

“You have to move on,” she said. “I want to go out and I want to practice. I realize I don’t like losing to the same person too many times. I don’t like that at all. . . . I want to make everything much better than it was this week. I want to be a totally different person at the Open.”

Against Williams, Hingis was patient and waited for the slightest opening, approaching it like a chess match.

“The first two [shots] are so fast, you just have to block them away until you can do something yourself,” Hingis said. “I’m not as strong as her. I’m not a bodybuilder. She could go boxing or something.”

And there will be future rounds.

“I definitely see it developing as a rivalry because I’m going to meet her many more times,” Williams said. “She’s not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. So I think it’s going to be something great in the future.”

Sanchez Vicario defeated lucky loser Elena Tatarkova of Ukraine, 6-3, 6-3, in the earlier quarterfinal. Tatarkova, ranked 63rd in the world, got into the main draw when Mary Pierce withdrew because of an injury.

Second-seeded Lindsay Davenport, who has won her last two tournaments, defeated eighth-seeded Natasha Zvereva, 6-2, 6-3, in the night quarterfinal. Davenport won the first nine points of the match.

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Today’s Semifinals

STADIUM COURT, NOON

* Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (3) vs. Martina Hingis (1).

STADIUM COURT, 7 P.M.

* Lindsay Davenport (2) vs. Monica Seles (4).