The top seed did not have to break a sweat today as she was handed a walkover when Zimbabwe's Cara Black withdrew due to illness.

Hingis is playing her first grasscourt match since falling to Jelena Dokic of Australia in the first round of Wimbledon last year. At the time, Hingis was coming off an emotional French Open final loss to Steffi Graf and was in the midst of a brief separation from her coach and mother, Melanie Molitor.

Hingis since has regrouped, but was a semifinal loser to eventual champion Mary Pierce at this year's French Open. She has one grasscourt title, winning Wimbledon in 1997.

In the semifinals Hingis will play fourth-seeded American Jennifer Capriati, who surived a tough match with Switzerland's Patty Schnyder, 7-5, 7-5. Schnyder knocked off No. 7 Kim Clijsters of Belgium earlier in the day.

Capriati snapped a four-match losing streak last week at the DFS Classic in Birmingham, England and reached the quarterfinals before falling to eventual winner Lisa Raymond in three sets.

With the help of renowned coach Harold Solomon, Capriati last season rejuvenated a once-promising career that had been sidetracked by off-the-court problems in the mid 1990s. She won two titles in 1999 and started this season by reaching the Australian Open semifinals. However, since recently splitting with Solomon, Capriati has looked out of shape and had not played well until last week.

Joining Hingis and Capriati in the semifinals will be No. 8 Ruxandra Dragomir of Romania and ninth-seeded Kristina Brandi of the United States.

Dragomir defeated second-seeded Frenchwoman Sandrine Testud, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, while Brandi beat Austria's Nicole Pratt, 6-3, 7-5.

Six second-round men's matches were on the schedule today, and the biggest name sent home was seventh-seeded Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands, who suffered a 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 loss to Martin Damm of the Czech Republic.

The other four men's seeds in action each advanced, with fifth-seeded American Michael Chang moving on with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over France's Jerome Golmard.

No. 3 Patrick Rafter of Australia beat Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands, 6-3, 6-2; France's Nicolas Escude, the second seed, moved on with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Russia's Mikhail Youzhny; and No. 8 Francisco Clavet of Spain defeated the Netherlands' Peter Wessel, 6-4, 6-4.

Rafter won one tournament during his injury-plagued 1999 campaign, claiming his second straight Heineken Open title here. Rafter is attempting to become the first player ever to win three crowns at this event.

Rafter's win here last year, along with a semifinal run at Wimbledon, helped lift him to the world's No. 1 ranking, but two months later he suffered a shoulder injury during the first round of the U.S. Open. He underwent arthroscopic surgery in October to repair a tear in his right shoulder.

The return to form has been slow for the two-time U.S. Open champion. After reaching the quarterfinals in his first event in February at Delray Beach, Rafter has yet to get past the third round in a tournament.

Top seed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia was forced to pull out of the event on Wednesday due to an acute sprain of his left ankle. Hewitt injured himself during the Stella Artois Championships last week.

The men's winner takes home $54,000 while the women's victor earns $27,000.