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Hingis battles Mauresmo at Grand Slam Cup
Wednesday, September 29 06:07:25 1999 PT

MUNICH, GERMANY (TICKER) -- Top seed Martina Hingis of Switzerland and Amelie Mauresmo of France resume their rivalry today in the quarterfinals of the $6.7 million Grand Slam Cup tennis exhibition.

The two have played three times this season and Hingis leads the all-time series, 4-1.

Hingis beat Mauresmo in the final of the Australian Open -- a match played after the Swiss teenager criticized Mauresmo for her openly lesbian lifesyle.

Mauresmo, 20, gained revenge at the Paris Indoor in February with a 6-2, 1-6, 3-6 triumph. But she lost to Hingis again at the French Open, 6-3, 6-3. Hingis went on to to reach the final where she was booed during her loss to the now-retired Steffi Graf.

Hingis has won six events this season but is coming off a loss to Serena Williams in the finals of the U.S. Open. She reached the semifinals of the Grand Slam Cup last year before retiring with cramps against Patty Schnyder.

Mauresmo reached her first Grand Slam final in Melbourne, beating then-No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, and became the first player ranked outside the top 10 to defeat two different world No. 1s in a calendar year. She is the first to do it within a month's time after knocking off Hingis in Paris, where she lost the final to Williams.

In a pair of men's matches, Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia meets Germany's Tommy Haas and Fernando Meligeni of Brazil squares off against Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador. All four players appeared in their first Grand Slam semifinals.

At the French Open, Hrbaty beat then-No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov and No. 9 Marcelo Rios before losing to eventual winner Andre Agassi.

Meligeni also was a first-time Grand Slam semifinalist in Paris, knocking off seeded players Patrick Rafter, Alex Corretja and Felix Mantilla before bowing out to Andrei Medvedev.

Haas and Lapentti made their mark at the Australian Open, where the 21-year-old German fell to Kafelnikov. Lapentti, 21, beat seeded players Karol Kucera and Thomas Johansson before falling to Thomas Enqvist.

The Grand Slam Cup is a tournament that rewards excellent play at the four Grand Slams, but does not carry ranking points on the ATP or WTA tours but hands out big money prizes.

The men's winner takes home $1.3 million while the women's champion earns $800,000. In addition, the men's winner of each Grand Slam receives $125,000 and the women $100,000.


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