Davenport Downs Hingis to Win Chase Championship

Second-seeded American Lindsay Davenport defeated No. 1 Martina Hingis and won the Chase Championships on Sunday.

After reaching the final twice before, Davenport dispatched Hingis, 6-4, 6-2 in a little more than hour to win the WTA Tour's $ 2 million season-ending event for the first time.

"Just going out to the match, I wanted to be really aggressive and go for winners," said Davenport, who earned $500,000 for winning her seventh singles title of the year.

"I played my best match ever, and to end my year with that is really great," the winner added.

A 19-year-old from Switzerland, Hingis fell to 1-2 in finals here at Madison Square Garden. Last season, she defeated then-No. 1 Davenport in four sets, and in 1996 she lost to Steffi Graf in five sets.

This year's final was only a best-of-three set.

"I guess that was a pretty solid performance," said Hingis, who received the runner-up check of $250,000. "It was probably her best match against me, but it's tough to come back consecutive days and play your best."

"I got a little frustrated about some calls, not like the way I played, of course," Hingis said. "But I think I've been able to control myself a little bit more. I missed some shots that I wasn' t supposed to miss, but things like that (bad calls) makes it even harder."

Hingis moved from singles action to doubles play, where she paired with Russian Anna Kournikova to win their fifth title of the year. The top seeds posted a 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 4 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain and Latvia's Larisa Neiland. They will share the $200,000 first prize.

Hingis and Kournikova also won the Australian Open, and appeared in the final of the French Open. However, Hingis will team with Mary Pierce to begin the 2000 season.


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