TOKYO (AP) -- Top-seeded Martina Hingis beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-0, 5-7, 6-2 Friday and advanced to the semifinals in the Toray Pan Pacific Open.

Later in the day, second-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States reached the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-0 rout of Iva Majoli of Croatia, the 1996 Toray champion.

Hingis dominated the first set against Japan's top player, but Sugiyama, ranked 49th in the world in singles, came back in the second set in an exchange of seven breaks.

In the final set, Hingis regained her rhythm and showed she was the steadier player, easily breaking in the first game.

Though broken in the next game after a couple of deuces, Hingis won the next four games, capitalizing on Sugiyama's erratic returns.

After Sugiyama won her service game to make it 5-2, Hingis held her own in the eighth to close out a 96-minute duel.

``The line calls? Well, you shouldn't get distracted by the line calls. Those were pretty close calls,'' Hingis said of her setback in the second set. ``I think that was more of me losing concentration and focus.

``I was serving for the match at 5-4 and 30-all, so I should have finished it off there, but she played a few good points and she was still hanging in there. I have to give her credit for that.''

Sugiyama said, ``Even when I was down 0-6 and then 2-4, I didn't think that my game was actually that bad, and so I wasn't in such a state of panic, and the service games were close. But I just couldn't convert on the chances and I think that was the main difference.''

It was Hingis' fifth win in their six matches since their first meeting in the 1996 Toray. Sugiyama's only triumph came in the round of 32 at the 1996 Olympics.

On Saturday, Hingis takes on eighth-seeded Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria, a 6-1, 7-6 (1) winner over Japan's Shinobu Asagoe.

In the semifinals, Davenport meets third-seeded Russian Anna Kournikova, who beat Anne-Gaelle Sidot of France 7-6 (4), 6-2.

Last year, Davenport skipped Toray with leg injuries. In 1999, she was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Amanda Coetzer of South Africa. That loss cost Davenport her No. 1 world rank, with Hingis winning her second Toray title and getting back to the top position.

``I thought I played a great match,'' Davenport, ranked second in the world behind Hingis, said of her match against Majoli. ``It's rare to win that easily because other players are so good.''

Hingis is seeking an unprecedented third straight Toray crown. She first won the title in 1997, and Davenport triumphed in between.