Martina Hingis totally destroyed Venus Williams today to reach her fifth successive Australian Open final in Melbourne. Hingis won a one-sided affair 6-1 6-1, needing only 53 minutes of superb tennis, to end the unbeaten Grand Slam run of Williams stretching back 19 matches to the start of Wimbledon last June.
And the bonus for the Swiss 20-year-old, proving herself unquestionably the world's current number one, is that in the final she does not have to face Lindsay Davenport, the player who beat her last year.
Davenport's defence of the title ended when she suffered a surprising, but emphatic loss to fellow American Jennifer Capriati, whose 6-3 6-4 victory sent the ecstatic 24-year-old into her first-ever Grand Slam final.
Filed by Seán Folan
