Monica Seles recovered from a mid-match lull and threatening conditions to defeat Spain's Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in the quarterfinals at Indian Wells. With winds whipping up sand storms during the match, Seles needed all of her experience to come through 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
In the semifinals, the American veteran will meet No. 2 seed Martina Hingis, who had an easier time advancing over Amanda Coetzer 6-1, 6-2 in the other women's quarterfinal match of the day.
"All the years that I played here, I never seen anything like today," Seles said. "It was just extremely windy, but also the sand in your eyes and on the tennis court, being slippery. So it was really difficult for both of us out there."
Seles entered the match leading Sanchez 19-3 in career head-to-heads. But as always, Sanchez-Vicario was prepared to counterpunch until the end. After dropping the opening set, Sanchez-Vicario adopted a new strategy in the second, using a variety of pace, depth and spin, to level the match. Her comeback was short-lived however, as Seles stormed back a break down in the third set to win the match.
"I just tried to stay as centered as I could, because I was losing it a little bit in the third set there," Seles said. "It's just one of those days that you do the best that you can."
Martina Hingis had a far easier time advancing over Coetzer, having adjusted her game to the breezy conditions. "I watched Monica's and Arantxa's match just before, and I learned from that," Hingis said. "[I learned] just to be patient, not go for shots too soon, just to wait for the right moment to come."
"Being from Switzerland, in the valley where it's always windy, it's no problem for me."
Hingis and Seles have met 18 times in their career, and the Swiss has won 14 of those meetings, including the two times they played this year at the Pan Pacific and the Australian Open.
"She's a player that has everything," Seles said. "She's a good counter-puncher. You have to try to be aggressive against her. She's a player that's going to make you hit a lot of balls and not going to give you any free points and stuff like that."
