Tennis: Hingis on track for sixth final

MELBOURNE - Third seed Martina Hingis raced into the semifinals of the Australian Open today with a clinical 6-2, 6-3 defeat of unseeded Italian Adriana Serra Zanetti.

Hingis outclassed Serra Zanetti and finished off their quarter-final in 73 minutes.

Hingis, who has not won a Grand Slam title since her third successive Australian Open victory in 1999, has been in dazzling form on her way to the last four. She has dropped just 15 games in five matches.

A much harder test awaits her in the semifinals, where she will play either second seed and hot favourite Venus Williams or former world No 1 Monica Seles.

Hingis will be vying for her sixth-straight final appearance in Melbourne.

She lost to Jennifer Capriati last year and Lindsay Davenport in 2000.

Zanetti, 25, was playing in her first Grand Slam quarter-final. Her previous best was the fourth round in the 1995 French Open.

She had few answers to Hingis' pinpoint groundstrokes and struggled to hold serve against a barrage of sharp returns.

In the men's draw, Thomas Johansson reached his first Grand Slam semifinal when he ended fellow Swede Jonas Bjorkman's charge with an efficient 6-0, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win.

Bjorkman upset sixth seed Tim Henman, of Britain, in the previous round, but met stiffer resistance in the quarter-final against his friend and 16th seed Johansson, who reached a career-high ranking of 14 last June.

The Swedish No 1's heavy serve blunted Bjorkman's flashy array of groundstrokes and often got him out of trouble as Bjorkman started to find range after the first set.

He blasted 15 aces past Bjorkman and had his opponent on the back foot with another 51 service winners.

Johansson will now play either 26th seed Jiri Novak, of the Czech Republic, or unseeded Austrian Stefan Koubek, for a place in Sunday's final.

The men's draw was blown wide open when the top five seeds all failed to make it past the first three days and many more fell in the first week.

Russian Marat Safin has been made a firm favourite by bookmakers to win his first Australian Open.

The ninth seed is the only player left in the men's draw to have won a Grand Slam title - the 2000 United States Open.

Safin has gone from 6-to-1 to even money after his four-set demolition of Pete Sampras in the fourth round early this morning. He meets South African veteran Wayne Ferreira in the quarter-finals.

Seventh seed Tommy Haas, of Germany, is second favourite. Haas beat Roger Federer in five sets on Monday night and is a 3-1 shot. He now faces Marcelo Rios.

- AGENCIES