Venus to meet Seles

SAN DIEGO, AUG. 5. Defending champion Venus Williams overpowered Lindsay Davenport 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday to set up a repeat of last year's final with Monica Seles at the $750,000 Acura Classic tennis.

Seles followed up her shock quarterfinal win over World No. 2 Jennifer Capriati by defeating No. 1 Martina Hingis 6-3, 6-4, giving her first-ever back-to-back wins over the tour's top two players.

``It's really excellent to come back after a match like yesterday and play as well as I did today. To keep my level high the entire match is really satisfactory,'' said Seles after beating Hingis for the first time in three years.

``It really feels great when you work hard and then you see the result. It's huge.'' Behind a blowtorch serve that reached 121mph and searing groundstrokes, Williams was never challenged in the first set.

But, after racing into a 3-0 lead in the second, Williams began to falter as Davenport found the range with her heavy groundstrokes.

Facing two match points serving at 4-5, the fourth-seeded Davenport stayed strong, thumping a forehand crosscourt winner and then watching Williams dump a forehand into the net to make it 5-5.

But Williams kept the pressure on as Davenport served at 5-6, belting returns and keeping her opponent on her heels.

On her third match point, Williams cracked a backhand winner down the line to earn her seventh victory in nine meetings with her fellow southern Californian.

Williams finished the contest with six aces and 27 winners, against only 11 winners from Davenport.

In breaking a seven-match losing streak against Hingis, seventh seed Seles played almost flawlessly, serving with precision and authority, cracking winners off both wings from inside the baseline and gamely running end-to-end during long rallies.

During a five-month absence from the tour recovering from a stress fracture in her right foot, Seles was forced to eliminate running from her off-court workouts and focused on biking, swimming and light weightlifting.

Now, the 27-year-old American is leaner, quicker and more durable. ``The results have come faster than I thought,'' Seles said.

Top seed Hingis, 20, went into the match with a 12-2 career superiority over Seles, but quickly discovered that her old tactic of trying to exhaust her rival in long rallies by frequently changing the pace, and by hitting behind her opponent wouldn't work.

Seles, who finished with 31 winners against her opponent's 16, won the match when a discouraged Hingis missed a backhand wide.

Williams and Seles have played five times, with the former winning on each occasion, including a tight 6-0, 6-7 (3- 7), 6-3 decision here last year.

The Wimbledon champion has been watching Seles this week. Williams is impressed with the way she is going after the ball and said she wouldn't allow Seles to dictate against her.

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