Hingis Into WTA Montreal Final

MONTREAL, Canada -- Swiss Miss Martina Hingis will have a chance to capture the second Tier I title of her 2006 comeback in Montreal on Sunday, as she takes on either Ana Ivanovic or Dinara Safina in the singles final of the $1,340,000 Rogers Cup presented by National Bank. The evening matches, including the second semifinal between the two aforementioned young guns, were postponed to Sunday due to rain.

Hingis, seeded No.7, advanced to the final when Anna Chakvetadze retired trailing 63 31 with a right forearm strain. Playing in her first Tier I semifinal, Chakvetadze looked as though she was going to give Hingis a run early on, hanging tough with the former No.1 through the first several games. But as the set went on it grew increasingly apparent that she was struggling, and shortly after calling for a medical timeout trailing 4-2 and dropping the first set, she decided to stop.

"I wanted to retire in the end of the set, but then I felt okay, so I tried to play; but if something is bothering you, you can't play," Chakvetadze said. "I felt it yesterday and I had treatment but it wasn't bad and in practice I felt okay. But in the start of the first set I felt something wrong with my hand. It was really stiff and hurting when I served and hit forehands."

Chakvetadze's fighting spirit, which has taken her to impressive wins this week against the likes of Nadia Petrova, Nathalie Dechy and Shahar Peer, came through Saturday as she continued to play despite apparent injury distress, an injury trainers told her afterwards would take less than a week to heal.

"I thought I could win; if I didn't, I'd never go to the court," Chakvetadze added. "And I told Martina that the next time I'll be ready, and it'll be a tougher match. I'm really sad because I knew that I could be in the finals."

"It's kind of disappointing to win a match like this," Hingis stated, "but she continued so you still have to keep the focus, because you don't know how much it's hurting and how much she still can play. I had never played her before. And those down-the-line backhands were really quite impressive."

With the victory, Hingis moved into her third final of the season, having finished runner-up at Tokyo [Pan Pacific] and capturing the title at Rome. Coincidentally, both are Tier I events, just like here in Montreal. This is her third final in six appearances at this event, her 21-3 record including two title runs (1999, 2000), and now a chance at a third title, six years after her last.

Hingis' championship challenger is yet to be determined, however. Ivanovic, seeded No.13, was leading No.9 seed Safina, 61 34, when the rains fell, causing the night matches to be postponed until Sunday. The Swiss will have to wait until morning to find out who she plays; they resume the match at 11am.

"Against Dinara, we've played in the finals of Rome, we've played also in Indian Wells on hard court. Both times I was successful. So definitely if I would play her, I'm looking forward to it, you know, maybe a rematch. And against Ana, I've never played her; a very good player, a very high potential. She's impressed definitely this week. You can see that she's training hard, she has the fitness and a new coach and it must be working for her, so those are the results so far."

Similar to the singles results, the afternoon doubles semifinal was completed while the night doubles semifinal was postponed until Sunday. Martina Navratilova and Nadia Petrova continued to impress in their first tournament together, beating fellow unseeded team Marion Bartoli and Shahar Peer, 63 63. The night match between No.2 seeds Cara Black and Anna-Lena Groenefeld and No.4 seeds Safina and Katarina Srebotnik was pushed to Sunday.
-- WTA