NEW YORK (AP) -- Accustomed to playing on the same side of the net as doubles partners, Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova will face each other in the semifinals of the Chase Championships.

Hingis survived a mid-match lapse to defeat sixth-seeded Nathalie Tauziat 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-2, and Kournikova cruised past No. 4 Conchita Martinez 6-4, 6-0.

The second semifinal pairing will be determined Friday night when No. 3 Monica Seles plays Amanda Coetzer, followed by surprising Elena Dementieva against Kim Clijsters in a battle of teen-agers. Dementieva upset defending champion Lindsay Davenport in a first-round match Wednesday night.

Kournikova seemed surprised when told after her match that she would face Hingis in the penultimate round.

``I guess we have no problem playing each other,'' she said.

Asked how to beat the world's No. 1 player, Kournikova, who has yet to win a professional tournament, said:

``You have to do a lot of things. You have to be lucky. You have to play with no mistakes. You have to create everything yourself.''

Against Martinez, Kournikova needed almost none of those things.

The Spanish veteran seemed content to loop her forehand and slice her backhand, the ball bouncing right into Kournikova's power zone. The second set took just 25 minutes as only one game went to deuce, that the second one when Kournikova was serving.

In the last three games of the match, Martinez won just four points, two on Kournikova's errors.

``She has more patience,'' Martinez said of Kournikova. ``She hits the ball the same, but doesn't miss as much. I was going too much for the lines and making mistakes.''

Making her 12th appearance at the Championships, Martinez has never gotten past the quarterfinals although she has been ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in 1995.

Kournikova is on a roll. The 19-year-old Russian, making her third appearance in the tournament, won her first match at Madison Square Garden in the first round when she topped Jennifer Capriati.

``The first time I played here I was really nervous,'' Kournikova said. ``I was 16 and was very happy to be here. Last year I was coming off a foot injury.''

Now she is in the semifinals and facing her doubles partner, who just happens to be the best player in the world.

Hingis, 20, is seeking her first major title since the 1999 Australian Open and her first victory here since winning this season-ending tournament in 1998.

Hingis zipped through the opening set before the 33-year-old Tauziat, one of the oldest players on the WTA Tour, picked up her game and took a 5-3 lead in the second set. Hingis fought back to knot the score and send it to a tiebreak, where Tauziat quickly won the first five points.

After the French player won the tiebreaker to level the match at a set apiece, Hingis rolled out to a 5-0 advantage in the decisive third set.

``She just picked up her game and started reading my game better. She served very well,'' Hingis said in explaining the second set. ``I started pushing the ball instead of taking my chances.''

That wasn't the case in the third set.

Hingis attacked, even from a defensive mode. She went for winners instead of just keeping the ball in ply.

On one point, pinned behind the baseline on a ball that hit right in the corner, Hingis ripped a forehand down the line for a winner, choosing to go over the high part of the net instead of taking the usual crosscourt shot. Tauziat, expecting the usual, was standing at the middle of the net waiting when the ball whizzed by her for a winner.

Tauziat, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 3 in May, never wavered or changed her game, continually attacking, taking the net at every chance. But Hingis, who sometimes calls Tauziat ``professor'' because of her age and knowledge of the game, followed Tauziat into the net for putaway volleys.

``I had to change my game a little bit to play well with the power players, and that just quickens up the game a lot,'' Hingis said of her forays into the net. ``And you don't give the other players too much rhythm from the baseline.

``You just have to make them think a little bit more, so they don't know what to expect from me. ... That's what she was doing better than me today, in a way, but then I started pushing her a little bit more.''

The tournament is ending a 28-year run in the United States and will move next year to Munich, Germany.