NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Before the current top-ranked woman in tennis takes the court to defend her Chase Championships title tonight, a former No. 1 and champion will be feted.

Top seed Martina Hingis of Switzerland starts the stretch run of a difficult season tonight with a first-round match against Sandrine Testud of France.

The first match of the evening will pit fourth seed and U.S. Open winner Serena Williams of the United States, making her Chase Championships debut, against Dominique Van Roost of Belgium.

In between, recently retired Steffi Graf of Germany will be honored in a 25-minute ceremony. The five-time champion will be saluted with a video tribute and have a banner bearing her name and the years of her Garden titles hoisted to the top of Madison Square Garden. It will hang next to Martina Navratilova's banner, the only one not belonging to either the New York Knicks or New York Rangers.

Earlier in the day, sixth seed Nathalie Tauziat of France posted a comfortable 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) victory over South African Amanda Coetzer. Tauziat, who has claimed two of the last four tournaments she has entered, will face either Williams or Van Roost in the quarterfinals.

Hingis captured her third straight Australian Open title in January, but put forth back-to-back embarrassing performances in the next two Grand Slam events.

The Swiss teenager let her temper get the best of her in her three-set loss to Graf in the French Open final and followed that up with a humiliating 6-2, 6-0 first-round defeat to Australian teenager Jelena Dokic at Wimbledon.

But Hingis has regained her focus since that tumultuous time and won three tournaments, reached the final of three others, including the U.S. Open, and reclaimed the No. 1 ranking from Lindsay Davenport.

Overall, Hingis has won a WTA Tour-leading seven titles in 1999, but has come up short in the last two finals she has appeared in. She lost to Venus Williams in her homeland tournament in Zurich last month and fell to Davenport in Sunday's final of the Advanta Championships in Philadelphia. Hingis defeated the-then top-ranked Davenport in four sets in last year's season finale.

Serena Williams will be returning to the city of her greatest triumph as she makes her debut at Madison Square Garden. She eliminated Davenport in the U.S. Open semifinals before defeating Hingis in the final.

The 18-year-old Serena has joined sister Venus in the top five in the rankings after winning the first five singles titles of her career. She has put together an impressive 41-7 record this season, which includes two 16-match winning streaks.

This event, which gathers the top 16 players in the world, offers the only best-of-five sets final in women's tennis. First prize is $500,000 from a total purse of $2 million.