WIMBLEDON, July 3: If the future of women's tennis were being played out on Centre Court, then there is something to look forward to. The two 16-year-olds, who would probably lead the game into the 21st century, battled it out for a place in the final of The Championships here today.

The top-seed Martina Hingis wavered a bit, unsettled perhaps by the uninhibited approach of Anna Kournikova, but maintained her straight-set winning spree to become the youngest ever finalist this century, winning 6-3, 6-2 in two minutes more than an hour.

In the final Hingis will meet Czech Jana Novotna, who defeated Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 6-4 6-2.

In their first meeting on grass after Hingis had defeated her at the French Open, Kournikova created an initial flutter breaking Hingis in the first game. However, that turned out to be the beginning of a long series of breaks, which ended in Kournikova holding her serve for the first time after 13 games had been played in the match.

It was well into the second and last set that Kournikova managed to hold. Otherwise, all the games she won were on Hingis' serve.

Even in defeat, Kournikova created a new milestone becoming only the second player in the Open Era to enter Wimbledon semifinals on her debut. The first was Christ Evert in 1972.

Hingis is yet to lose a set in the six rounds she has played so far. Kournikova exploited the none-too-powerful serve which resulted in so many breaks. Despite being outpaced by Kournikova with her deep returns on either flanks, Hingis managed to hang on.

Hingis finally held serve in the fourth game of the first set and that was when things began to look up for the world No. 1. She broke Kournikova yet again and then served out the first set not before encountering stiff resistance from the Russian.

``It wasn't for sure one of my best performances at this tournament,'' Hingis said. ``She really went for her shots and also had a lot of winners, especially on my second serve. She was also making a lot of effort so I tried to keep the ball in play and I was waiting for her to make mistakes. But I think she made more mistakes than winners,'' Hingis said.

In the second set, Hingis ran into a 3-0 lead. Kournikova knocked off the next two only to see Hingis reel off the neat three games and the match.

In the men's quarter-final action, top seed Pete Sampras and Australian Todd Woodbridge entered the semi-finals while the two British hopes were severely dealt with.

Sampras defeated eighth seed German, Boris becker 6-1 6-7 6-1 6-4 in a match that was deemed as good as the final. Woodbridge, half of the highly successful doubles partnership with compatriot Mark Woodforde, buried young German Nicolas Kiefer 7-6 2-6 6-0 6-4 in a match abandoned for over two and a half hours because of occasional drizzle.

Former winner, Germany's Michael Stich defeated Henman 6-3 6-2, 6-4, while Rusedski went out, more with a whimper than with a bang as Cedric Pioline, two-time quarterfinalist here, lost one set before drubbing his opponent 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 to enter his first semifinal in eight years.

It was anti-climatic end to Rusedski's hopes in the tournament because there was none of the fiery spirit with which he played his earlier matches.His serve was not as effective and Piolone made good use of it to make Rusedski look pretty ordinary.

His rather easy win would have surprised even Pioline because Rusedski was apparently on a roll and had raised visions of a great weekend for him.

In fact, he had exceeded the best ever performance here and he would had to have tons of luck to proceed further. A thoroughly deflated and tired-looking Rusedski offered little resistance to the Frenchman who played just solid to frustrate Rusedski.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.