Clijsters Ends Hingis Run at Australian Open

On Wednesday at the Australian Open, the No. 2 seed Kim Clijsters put another all-Belgian final a mere one match away when she stopped the amazing run of comeback kid Martina Hingis, edging the unseeded Swiss 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.

Clijsters jumped to a 4-0 lead in eventually capturing the first set, and a 2-0 lead in the second before her backhand broke down in the face of Hingis' baseline consistency. The Belgian against jumped out to an early 3-1 lead in the third, but the Swiss evened things at 3-3 before Clijsters broke again in the next game. Serving at 3-5, Hingis saved two match points before Clijsters closed out the match on her serve at love.

"I felt very empty out there today," said Clijsters, who has struggled with hip and back injuries in Melbourne. "I just hit the wall. All of a sudden I just felt like I was going for wide backhands, felt no power in my legs to push off and to create the power you have to create to be able to beat her, to break her game. In the third set, I started to keep the rallies a little shorter again, and it worked."

Hingis, competing in her third event of 2006 after a three-year layoff, saw positives in the loss.

"I lost only 6-4 in the third against the No. 1 player starting from (this coming) Monday, so I don't think it's that bad after all," Hingis said. "Three years pass by, you can't just think you're going to step out there and win everything. I made the last eight, and all the other players are either former No. 1s or Top 8 players or Top 10 players. I'm one of them who was in the draw. You know, if you make the final eight, you definitely have the belief."

In the other quarterfinal Wednesday, No. 3 seed Amelie Mauresmo, still seeking her first career slam title, announced her continued presence with a 6-3, 6-0 thrashing of No. 7 seed Patty Schnyder.

"I was just off, and she was all over me," said Schnyder, appearing in her third consecutive Australian Open quarterfinal. "She just took advantage and didn't let it go. I had the feeling when I rally with her, I was getting tired and pushed back too much, just too much power. It's really one of the rare ones where there was no match at all. I don't really know what happened to me."

In the first doubles semifinal, No. 12 seeds Yan Zi and Zheng Jie of China gained the final, the first-ever slam final for Chinese players, defeating No. 9 seeds Shinobu Asagoe and Katarina Srebotnik 6-2, 7-6(2).

On court Thursday are the semifinals in (4) Sharapova vs. (8) Henin-Hardenne (Belgian leads career series 2-1), and (2) Clijsters vs. (3) Mauresmo (Belgian leads 8-3).