The Swiss No. 1 seed barely gave Kournikova breathing room in the contest as she dominated play on the baseline and capitalized on mistakes in No. 5 seed Kournikova's service game in a match that lasted 47 minutes.

"I just played almost a perfect game today," Hingis said.

The Swiss teen said that going into the showdown with Kournikova, she felt that if she could block the hard and flat groundstrokes of her Russian foe, she could take the match.

"She (Kournikova) is taking a very high risk when she plays," Hingis said, adding that when Kournikova played other players she may have scored winners with the flat shots, but on longer rallies "it is very difficult for her to keep the ball in the court".

The first two games of the set were closely fought but Hingis was able to pull off an early service break while Kournikova may have been bothered by a crucial call that did not go her way.

Hingis gave Kournikova a chance to rebound after blanking her in the first set by dropping her serve in the first game of the second set.

Kournikova went up 30-0 in the next game but Hingis quickly showed her mental and physical toughness by shutting down the Russian teen -- who sprinkled spectacular play along with a slew of unforced errors in the match -- to break Kournikova's serve and sail through the second set.

"It is very difficult to play Martina when she gets up first of all, and even if she makes mistakes, she gets stronger," Kournikova said.

Prior to this match, the most one-sided match between the two was Hingis' 6-1, 6-3 win over Kournikova in the 1997 French Open. The Swiss teen went to 7-1 in matches with Kournikova with the quarterfinal win in Tokyo.

Hingis will face the winner of the quarterfinal match between No. 4 seed Amanda Coetzer of South Africa and No. 7 seed Chanda Rubin in the semifinals.

In a battle of unseeded players, lucky loser Lilia Osterloh of the United States could not continue her charmed ways at the Pan Pacific by following her enormous upset of number two seed Mary Pierce of France. Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia defeated her 7-6 (8-6), 6-1.

Srebotnik, who upset No. 8 seed Ai Sugiyama in the first round, will face the winner of the all-French quarterfinal match between No. 3 Nathalie Tauziat and sixth seed Sandrine Testud.