If you had closed your eyes during the quarter-final match between Mary Pierce and Monica Seles, you might have thought that here were two masochists having a swinging time on Court Suzanne Lenglen. A thump of the ball, followed by a shriek from Pierce was met with a lower pitched grunt from Seles and a whack.

In the end, Pierce's thumps were the bigger feature of the match and while her opponent in today's semi-final at Roland Garros, Martina Hingis, mixes her game more than anyone, the Pierce forehand is better honed now than at any time in her career.

Hingis, who spent the afternoon yesterday watching Magnus Norman, has, like Pierce, dropped only one set since round one, a 6-0 giveaway to Chanda Rubin. Over five matches she has played 11 sets, taking five hours 52 minutes. Pierce has almost exactly the same stats having played 11 sets in five hours 43 minutes.

On her game, though, Hingis will have her doubles partner chasing to the net as often as teeing up her formidable forehand. If she attempts to do what Seles did in trying to out-punch Pierce, the number one seed could come to grief.

Typically, the other semi-finalists, Spain's Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Conchita Martinez have more mileage in their legs at this stage of the race. Both 28 year olds have played over eight hours, with Martinez stretching her run to nine hours 21 minutes.

In her 13th straight visit to Roland Garros, Martinez has equalled her best performance, having reached the semi-finals in 1994 and 1996, with Sanchez-Vicario the first seeded player she will meet.

In beating Venus Williams in the last round, Sanchez-Vicario might rightfully feel that she has the form to surpass last year's effort where she lost in the semi-finals to Hingis. "I'm a better player than I was last year," she said.