Play was supposed to start at 11am on Center Court today, but the singles match between Elena Likhovtseva and Conchita Martinez started a little later. Today was Australia Day, and everywhere, Australian flags were flying. That may have had something to do with the fact that a small choir came out on center court. Seeing that the match would start a little later, and anticipating a long match between Elena and Conchita, I took the risk and headed to Show Court 1 to see Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs up against Anna Kournikova and Barbara Schett.

It was obvious from the start that Barbara would be the odd one out on court. Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs are totally deserving of the top seed, with all due respect to Martina Hingis, and complement each other remarkably well on court. Reminiscent of Natasha Zvereva and Gigi Fernandez, Rennae is obviously the fiery one of the pair, and Lisa proves to be a calming influence on her. Not that the effect is very noticeable. While Rennae is the one calling the shots in the team, Lisa is always there to keep her from exploding on court, being defaulted from the match, or killing someone. Oh yeah, and Lisa can play tennis, too.

On the other side of the net, Anna Kournikova was in charge, as she has in all her teams with the exception of when she was playing with Martina Hingis. As confident as ever on court, Anna isn't shy to let her partner know when she's made a silly mistake, compromising their positions on court. Which is good, because she's teamed up with Barbara Schett, a top-ten singles player but a lowly #36 in the doubles scene. With Martina Hingis playing doubles at only a limited number of tournaments, and Natasha Zvereva still unable to find anyone to fill in the gap left by Jana Novotna, Anna has learnt well from her experience playing with Martina, and has used it to step up and take the top spot in the rankings.

Barbara was trying hard out there, though, recognizing that she was the weak link in the team, and did as best as she probably could in such circumstances. Her and Anna's straight-up what-you-see-is-what-you-get tennis wasn't enough to really challenge Rennae and Lisa's more strategic, smarter brand of tennis. The end scoreline is a lot closer than anyone might have thought watching the match, mostly due to Lisa and Rennae having trouble handling the power-hitting coming from the youngsters every now and then when they found the chance. Anna also came up with a number of spectacular gets and trick shots, making the veterans play one more point. As usual, Rennae was a riot to watch, getting upset when she had a short lapse in concentration or when Lisa made a mistake in carrying out whatever tactic they had planned for the point. Lisa was more introverted on court, shaking off her mistakes and adding in a word or two after Rennae expressed which plan she thought would be good for the next point.

Finally, after fighting hard to keep themselves in the match, Anna and Babsi lost a close second set, taking Rennae and Lisa to the finals with a 6-4 7-6(4) semifinal match. At the other end of the draw, three teams were still waiting to see who would make up the other half of the final match. Lindsay Davenport and Corina Morariu, the second seeds, are still stuck in the quarterfinals, their match against Julie Halard-Decugis and Ai Sugiyama delayed time and time again because of the streaky weather. The other pair, the underseeded team of Mary Pierce and Martina Hingis, is already through to the semifinals with their win against Debbie Graham and Nana Miyagi.

I headed off, hoping that Elena Likhovtseva was still on center court against Conchita Martinez. When I got in, she had just dropped the first set 6-3. As I took my seat, I couldn't help but smile, thinking of her comment about her previous match. Asked if she was surprised that she had taken Serena Williams out in straight sets, she replied, "Well, I was up 3-0 on the second set, so I thought I had better win the second set too."

Elena and Conchita both play their own unique styles, and while Elena doesn't look like she has any weapons at all, there is actually more to her than meets the eye. She didn't get to #15 late last season for nothing. One of, if not the busiest player on tour in 1999, Elena has shown to be one of the very small minority of players who have actually picked up their careers after getting married. Often underestimated, the quiet Kazakhstan-born Russian neither hits the ball particularly hard, nor with a lot of spin. She doesn't possess extraordinary running skills either, but with a good eye for the ball and good anticipation of where her opponent is going to go next, she manages to get a lot of balls back with good placement. One of the few "tour veterans" with initiative, she does her homework before her matches, and has a good idea of her opponents' strengths, weaknesses and tendencies. It also helps that she's not daunted by the task of venturing to the net every now and then.

The first set was pretty even between the two. The unforced errors and winners were pretty much even, but Conchita came through on the important points, and managed to convert one of her three break points, while Elena held 5 chances for the break, but didn't manage to come through on a single one. That single break decided the first set, and Conchita, after nearly three quarters of an hour, took the first set 6-3.

It looked like it would all be over soon when Conchita got the early break in the second set. The crowd, not sure of whether they would like more for their money or to see Martina Hingis and Arantxa on court, were pretty much quiet. Then the Swedish fans came to save the day. Two of them had been singing their Wilander song early on, waving their infamous "Wilander is Innocent" banner. Now, they changed it to their Elena song. That gave the crowd something to entertain themselves with, and when the players took to the courts, there were some shouts of encouragement for the Russian. Elena herself was more determined, though, and she started hitting her shots with a little more conviction, bent on making the most of her first quarterfinal Grand Slam appearance. She managed to get more of her first serves in, and suddenly managed to keep her unforced errors to a minimum. She also significantly changed her stroke mechanics so that she could hit Conchita's high loopy shots on the rise, keeping her relatively closer to the baseline instead of up against the backboard. The got the berak back, and went ahead to convert her single other break point to save the match, taking the second set 6-4.

The crowd was now more into the match, and every long rally, every winner by the Russian, and every net approach was accompanied by oohs and aahs. The third set was nothing short of a thriller, featuring long rallies that built to a climax, good running from Elena, drop shots and lobs, and well-constructed points. Conchita got the first break, and carried it until 3-4, when Elena got the break back. Elena started throwing her own loopy topspin shots at the Spaniard, and actually managed to get the unforced errors off her. Good serving continued for Elena, and she held serve. In a turn of events, now Conchita was serving to stay in the championships. She rose to the occasion, and forced a couple of service return errors from an over-ambitious Likhovtseva, getting the game.

With Elena up to serve, Conchita tried to get the break by hitting flatter, harder shots, running the Russian around the court. A lot of scrambling and a couple of unforced errors from Elena gave Conchita her service game. Elena also jumped ahead in her service game, going up 40-love, but Conchita started cutting down on the topspin again, saving all three game points. Out of the red light, she brought back the topspin, and patiently hit them one after the other, forcing Elena to come up with the play. Surprisingly, Conchita came to net, in a rare display of aggressiveness, and got the break.

Once again, it looked like it was all over for Elena. While a less experienced and ambitious player may have just given it up after being on the edge so many times already, Elena saved one match point, bringing Conchita's game to deuce. The next point saw an especially tremendous rally, with Elena scrambling all over the place, trying to get just another shot back, and Conchita throwing all sorts of spins at her. Conchita's offensive play got her the point, and match opportunity #4. Perhaps a little nervous after losing the three match points already, her backhand found the net, and courageous play from Elena gave her the advantage. Fighting fire with fire, Elena again started throwing topspin shots at Conchita, and made the match dead even at 6-all in the third.

Conchita was a little frustrated by now, and channeled that emotion into a service return winner down the line. That was followed by two errors, though, and a strong play from Elena in which she rushed in to net gave her 2 games points. She squandered both points, doubles-faulting on the second one, but picked up her play again to save her service game.

Once again, Conchita found herself serving to stay in the championships. Watching a semifinal appearance slipping away, she used her experience in tight situations to go up 40-15. Elena had nothing to lose, however, and went for broke, coming in to net and putting the pressure on Conchita to come up with the passing shot. She managed to even things up a little, but Conchita saved the match when she herself came in to net.

The unforced errors continued from both players, both taking turns to be the aggressor (well, relatively aggressive, compared to the usual styles these two use). Elena managed to come up with just one more than her opponent, though, and lost her serve. Once again, she was in trouble in the match.

If there ever was a time that the Russian would give in, though, it wasn't now. She played loose tennis, but not so loose as to become careless, and held a small window of chance when she went up 30-15 on Conchita's serve. She missed an extremely easy volley, amid groans from the crowd, to bring it to 30-all instead of 15-40. Undaunted, she continued to put the pressure on Conchita, and bravely came in to net at the very first opportunity. It didn't work this time, and on match point, Conchita got a short pass down the line, which Elena might have gotten to if she hadn't slipped and temporarily lost her footing. After 2 hours and 35 minutes, the longest women's match of the tournament so far, Conchita Martinez was in the semifinals of the Australian Open, where she would meet the winner of the following match between Martina Hingis and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.

Arantxa started off slow again in her match. While she managed to get through in her match against a less experienced player like Barabara Schett, a slow start was walking on dangerously thin ice against a player like Martina Hingis. An uncharacteristic number of unforced errors were coming off Arantxa's racquet, and error after frustrating error gave Martina a waltz through the first set, 6-1. After missing shot after shot, Arantxa, down 0-1 in the second set, ran after a dropshot, and just managed to flick the ball past Martina who was waiting at net. The ball dropped just in the corner of the court, giving her a winner. A good time for the match to turn around, but Martina remained as cool and calm as ever, not letting the "lucky" shot unnerve her. After all, she had just cruised through the draw, and she wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. Making it more of a point to finish things off quickly than ever, she worked her way through to a 2-0 lead in the second set.

At this point, it started to rain. Yet another hiccup in Martina's plans to go home early. The tournament referee considered the rain serious enough to have the roof closed, and both players had a break in the locker room while the courts were dried. While the rain may have been a divine order for Arantxa to take the match against a lesser opponent, Arantxa had just as much chance to come out of it on top as Martina did. Serving and down 0-15, the match soon started again after the players were given a few minutes to warm up. The scene didn't change at all, and Martina jumped to a 3-0 lead.

At this point, a male member of the audience shouted, "that's it, my little blueberry muffin", referring to Martina. This got a round of laughter from the audience, although Martina didn't look too amused. Later it was revealed in her press conference that she hadn't quite heard the comments, and asked one of the reporters what he had said. The reason why this comment got so much attention was because at the start of the match, the same guy had shouted, "Come on, my little honey crumpet." Comments like that had been going around, and especially around Anna's matches. During her mixed doubles match against Michael Hill and Corina Morariu, when she was hit by a volley from Hill, one of the audiences shouted, "Don't worry about it, Anna", while another followed with "I'm gonna get you", directed at Hill.

Anyway, Martina continued to get the errors off the Spaniard's racquet, and was testing her scrambling abilities as best as she could. Spurred by a cry of "That's the way, my strawberry shortcake," as easily as she had romped through the tournament so far, she blasted past the tour veteran, a 6-1 6-1 victory that was probably as easy for her as it looked. As wary as ever when asked if it was, though, she replied that she was on the alert throughout the match, and credited Arantxa as best as she could without making it sound forced. One could only wonder how much more of a fight Conchita Martinez could give the Swiss Miss in their semifinal match the next day.