Golden girl Pierce stuns Hingis to earn final spot against Martinez

Golden girl Pierce stuns Hingis to earn final spot against Martinez
Winsor Dobbin

Paris, June 8: French golden girl Mary Pierce continued her rekindled love affair with Roland Garros when she stunned top seeded Martina Hingis 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 on Thursday to seal her place in the French Open women's singles final.

Pierce, who has so often been booed by the fickle Parisian fans, had them in raptures on Centre Court as she out-hit Hingis in a thriller. It was only Pierce's sixth win in 16 meetings with Hingis and her first in their last eight. She squandered a match point in the second set but recovered to win in 2hr 10min.

Pierce will now face Conchita Martinez, who ripped up the formbook and turned the tables on fellow Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, winning 6-1, 6-2 in the other semi-final. Martinez reached only the third Grand Slam final of her career - and her first in 13 appearances at Roland Garros. "It is like a surreal dream for me," said Martinez. "It is one of the happiest moments of my life."

Pierce, 25, has a 10-6 career head-to-head record against Martinez. If she wins she will become the first French women's champion here since Francoise Durr in 1967. She will be playing in only her fourth Grand Slam final after winning at the Australian Open in 1995 and losing here in 1994 and Melbourne in 1997. Over the past six years, Pierce has frequently angered the French crowds with lacklustre performances here.

She says she has now found God and is more content than she has ever been before. "It was a super match, but it was very difficult in such windy conditions," Pierce said. "I was a little tight on match point in the second set and I knew that in the third set I had to play even more aggressively."

The loss was another Centre Court nightmare for Swiss teenager Hingis, beaten in the final here in both 1997 and last year - when she lost in a torrent of tantrums and tears against the now-retired Steffi Graf. The French Open remains the only Grand Slam title the 19-year-old prodigy has never won. The crowd greeted her politely on Thursday, but whistled several times when she disputed line calls.

Hingis raced to a 3-1 lead early on, but allowed Pierce to claw her way back into the set, taking it 6-4 despite six nervous double faults. Pierce used her super-solid groundstrokes to control the majority of the rallies; she was patient but aggressive when the opportunity presented itself - perfect clay court tactics. Pierce broke for 3-1 in the second set and Hingis earned more boos from slamming her racket to the ground.

Pierce played some of the best, most varied tennis of her career to that point and although Hingis came back to 3-3 as the wind became increasingly gusty she led 5-3 before dropping serve to love when she served for the match. Hingis saved a match point at 4-5 and held for 5-5 - prompting Pierce to go into mental meltdown as she sprayed the ball randomly around the stadium. Hingis took the second set 7-5 but Canadian-born Pierce hung tough and broke for 3-1 in the decider - only to promptly drop her own serve.

The rollercoaster pattern continued as Pierce broke for 4-2 - and this time she was able to hang on as Hingis faded badly. "The crowd were a huge help to me today," Pierce said. "It was great to have them so much behind me."

Martinez played solid, occasionally aggressive tennis as she scored only her fourth win in 17 career matches against Sanchez-Vicario - a six-time French Open finalist and three-time winner. Martinez, 28 had not beaten Sanchez-Vicario in seven matches against her Fed Cup teammate since 1995.

"I prepared for this match down to the very last detail," she said. "She had won so many tight matches against me - but today I was mentally stronger. "Now I'm in the final I have a great desire to win Roland Garros. It's been a fantastic year and I've worked really hard to get this far."

It was a match characterised by loose service games and high looping top-spin forehands from both players. The crowd became annoyed by the long "moonball" rallies between the pair - occasionally whistling in disgust. Martinez held serve from 0-40 in the first game and then broke to take a 2-0 lead, saving a break point again to go 3-0 in front.

Sanchez-Vicario eventually held for 1-3 but Martinez broke again for 5-1 with the aid of a mis-hit and a double fault and then served out for the set in 35min. Martinez kept the ball deep and went for more winners, and she broke again in the first game of the second set before holding for 2-0. Once Martinez hit the front, however, she tightened briefly and Sanchez-Vicario broke back to love for 2-2. Martinez gathered her wits, however, breaking straight back - and Sanchez-Vicario was on the ropes as error after error flowed from her racket.

Martinez won 56 points in the 1hr 20min match to just 33 for Sanchez-Vicario, whose loss meant she failed to equal Chris Evert's record of 72 main draw singles wins at Roland Garros. Martinez, who won Wimbledon in 1994, is now 54-12 here and will be playing in her first Grand Slam final since the 1998 Australian Open. She had lost in all three of her previous semi-final appearances here and improved on what had been a dismal 2-9 record in Grand Slam semis coming into the match.

Martinez has been in fine form this year, winning the German Open - beating Hingis - while eighth-seeded crowd favourite Sanchez-Vicario is still without a title this year. "It was just one of those days when nothing went right - I just threw it away," Sanchez-Vicario said.

Both men's semi-finals are slated for Friday afternoon with third-seeded Swede Magnus Norman taking on unseeded Argentine Franco Squillari and 1997 champion Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil playing 16th-seeded Spanish phenomenon Juan Carlos Ferrero. Norman, who has never won a Grand Slam title, is expected to meet Kuerten in Sunday's final - but this has been a tournament marked by a number of upsets. (AFP)