This Time, Seles Gets Ousted by Hingis

A child’s voice plaintively called out “Mon-ee-ka” in the match’s waning moments, but it had little more effect than any of Monica Seles’ shots did against the chilling precision of Martina Hingis.

The top-seeded Hingis made just 16 unforced errors in a 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 6 Seles on a cool Tuesday night at the U.S. Open to reach her ninth straight Grand Slam semifinal.

Hingis closed out the match with her second ace, then jumped for joy and pumped her right arm in the air. The match included several long, fascinating rallies in which both players made acrobatic saves.

Seles had defeated Hingis in their only two previous matches this year, including the semifinals of the French Open. But Hingis was nearly perfect Tuesday night, losing just seven points on her serve in the first set.

“I was a little worried going into the match because I wasn’t playing my best and I lost two times to Monica before this,” Hingis said. “I was playing well tonight, my serve was very good and I didn’t make any mistakes. I was on a good wave.”

The temperature was just 66 during the match, and a 21 mph wind that swirled around the Arthur Ashe Stadium court made it feel like 55 degrees.

Hingis will face No. 3 Jana Novotna in the semifinals. Novotna, the Wimbledon champion, advanced earlier Tuesday with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Patty Schnyder, who ousted Steffi Graf on Sunday.

Wimbledon changed perceptions about Novotna, who had gone through some painful Grand Slam losses before her breakthrough. Now, other players fear her.

“I feel that way, yes,” she said. “I feel like they are afraid of me. When they are ahead of me, they are unsure they can finish it off. It is a great achievement, a big step forward for me.

“When you respect somebody, it makes it harder to beat them.”

Novotna’s confidence has soared but that doesn’t mean she isn’t happy to have some help from the other players now and then. There was, for example, Schnyder’s straight-set elimination of Steffi Graf a round earlier.

If Graf had won that match, she would have been across the net from Novotna on Tuesday. And there is too much history there for Novotna to forget, especially the fold at Wimbledon in 1993 when she blew a big lead to lose to Graf in the finals.

“I was pleased when I heard the news that she beat Steffi,” Novotna said. “There’s no question about it. I mean playing Steffi today in this (wind) condition, it would be really difficult because she hits really hard and she’s very overpowering. It would be much harder to create my game.”

Playing Novotna proved more difficult for Schnyder, especially because of the winds.

“It was terrible to play in,” she said. “At the beginning, it was not that bad. But it started to get really bad and she played so deep, I couldn’t really find my game. Then it got worse and worse. It was horrible.

“I just started very slow and then she played really good and she didn’t let me find my game.”

For Schnyder, just 18, it was a frustrating way to go out, especially after beating Graf. Novotna, who will be 30 next month, has no recollection of herself or her game when she was Schnyder’s age.

“I don’t even remember or want to remember,” she said. “I wasted too much time.”