Hingis dispatched South African Joanette Kruger, 6-2, 6-1, in 52 minutes. She is looking for a Middle East sweep after defeating Sandrine Testud on Sunday at the Qatar Open in the first WTA Tour final staged in the region.

The 20-year-old from Switzerland captured her second title of the year and 37th of her career. She owns a 22-2 match record, with her only two losses coming to Jennifer Capriati in the Australian Open final and to world No. 2 Lindsay Davenport one week later at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

Prior to those runner-up finishes, Hingis led Switzerland to the Hopman Cup title and won the adidas International in Sydney the following week. She received a bye into the first round.

Fourth seed Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain made an inauspicious season debut, falling to Russian qualifier Lina Krasnoroutskaya, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. Sanchez-Vicario chose to miss the Australian portion of the schedule to stay at home and practice.

The 16-year-old Krasnoroutskaya, the former No. 1 junior player, reached the quarterfinals last week at Doha.

Sixth seed Barbara Schett of Australia was upended by Tunisia's Selima Sfar, 7-6 (7-5), 2-6, 7-5. Sfar, who has participated in only four career WTA Tour tournamaments, has reached the second round at all three events she has played this season.

Testud, the fifth seed from France, easily moved into the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands and will play Hingis for the second straight week.

Also, third seed Nathalie Tauziat of France hopes to avoid a three-match losing streak when she takes on Rita Grande of Italy; seventh-seeded Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand battles Marlene Weingartner of Germany; and No. 8 Henrietta Nagyova of Slovakia goes against Australian qualifier Rachel McQuillan.

First prize is $80,000.