NEW YORK (AP) -- Martina Hingis survived a 2-hour, 21-minute marathon to win her second Chase Championships and keep Monica Seles from capturing a sentimental fourth season-ending title.

When Seles buried a service return into the net, ending the 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4 battle, Hingis wept with joy and relief. The world's top-ranked player had been extended by a former No. 1 who was trying to capture the Madison Square Garden finale she last won in 1992.

``I played some great tennis,'' Seles said, ``but Martina was just too tough there at the end.''

After being held at the Garden since 1979, the championships are moving next year to Munich, Germany.

Hingis and Seles engaged in a classic in the final New York edition, with one getting the momentum only briefly before the other edged ahead.

Seles served for the first set in the 10th game, but was broken. Hingis had three set points in the 12th game -- a 24-point miniature of the afternoon's competition -- before they played the tiebreaker, which Seles won 7-5.

Fifty-six minutes after they had struck the first ball, they had played only one set, a crowd-pleasing one.

The fun -- and the tension -- was just starting.

Both Hingis and Seles took their best shots from the baseline. moving the other around, seeking an opening. Seles finished with 53 winners -- four more than Hingis -- but had 31 unforced errors -- five more than Hingis.

The opening set was a thriller, but like a good show, it was only a portent of things to come on the Garden's blue carpet.

Hingis lost her serve in the second game of the second set, only to break right back.

Following the third game, both players looked exhausted and Seles began stretching her left leg. It also was an omen.

Seles, who won the championships three straight years when she ruled women's tennis, had the harder time holding her serve. In the fifth game of the second set, one that took seven minutes to play, she had to battle through four deuces before finally holding with a sizzling backhand down the line.

She followed by breaking Hingis at 30, taking a 4-2 lead and only needing to hold serve to win her fourth title.

It didn't take long for Hingis to reply. She broke Seles' serve in the next game -- at love -- and again in the ninth game, this time from deuce. And when she held at 30 in the 10th game, she had captured the second set and leveled the match.

On the changeover, a trainer came onto the court to work on Seles' hip flexor, one of a series of injuries that have kept her off the court for nearly two months since the Sydney Olympics, where she won the bronze medal.

Seles had not practiced for this event and entered only because it was the last championships she would play because of the move to Germany. Seles has refused to play in Germany since she was stabbed during a tournament in Hamburg in 1993 and her assailant, Guenter Parche, was never jailed.

For her, this was the last hurrah. She played like it.

The final set began with three service breaks, Hingis winding up with a 2-1 lead. Serving for the match, Hingis double-faulted on the first championship point. But she followed with her fifth ace of the afternoon, then began crying in joy when a forehand service return by Seles found the tape and never made it over.