Paris: Back on tour after a three-year hiatus due to injury, Martina Hingis suddenly is a title contender again. She was playing all the right angles and flashing that familiar wry smile on Monday as she wrapped up a 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 victory over Shahar Peer in the fourth round.
"It's a new year," Hingis said, "new Roland Garros."
Now comes a true test for Hingis. A quarter-final on Tuesday against No 2 Kim Clijsters, the reigning US Open champion and twice a runner-up at the French Open.
Hingis' match against Peer was halted on Sunday after two sets because of fading light, so their best-of-one-set turn on Monday was a bit anticlimactic - as was men's fourth-round action, for the most part.
Rafael Nadal, the defending champion, lugged an 0-3 career record against two-time major winner Lleyton Hewitt into their encounter, but those previous meetings were all on hard courts, and all before Nadal emerged as a star.
Nadal's 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 victory was his 57th consecutive win on clay and moved him closer to a possible showdown in the final against Roger Federer, who's trying to become the first man since 1969 to win four Slams in a row.
Nadal, Hewitt said, is "very much like Federer, winning so many matches that it's sort of second nature for him. They get down break point, and they expect to get out of it."
Nadal's quarter-final foe will be Novak Djokovic of Serbia-Montenegro, who eliminated fellow 19-year-old Gael Monfils of France 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5), 6-3.
The Parisians were sad to see Monfils go, but they do have a countryman left to support.
Julien Benneteau, who reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final when Alberto Martin of Spain quit in the first set because of back problem.
Benneteau will face Ivan Ljubicic, a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 winner over Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo of Spain.
"It's physically probably the most demanding Grand Slam, but I think of myself as one of the fittest players on tour," Ljubicic said.
The grind of playing on clay hasn't affected Hingis yet. She left the tour in 2002 after a series of injuries and operations to her feet and ankles, and on Tuesday will represent a fifth consecutive day on court for a woman enjoying a renaissance at age 25.
"Now I can kind of survive a lot of things. It doesn't matter what's coming up next," said the 12th-seeded Hingis, who was ranked No 1 when she was 16.
"I really don't care if I have to play now every day anymore, because I know I've come up with good tennis every day."
Still confident after all these years, huh?
Eight of her 10 losses this season have been to women who've won majors, including Clijsters in the Australian Open.
But as Hingis pointed out: "I've made a lot of improvements since Australia. Everything pretty much was new. I was happy to win the first round."
Expectations are much higher these days, in part because the muscle memory from her five Grand Slam titles is all the way back.
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She won the Italian Open last month for the first title of her comeback, and was steely as ever against Peer, mixing in four drop shots to end points.
"Martina was playing unbelievable today," said Peer, who was hoping to become the first Israeli woman or man to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final.
"She had, I think, very few mistakes. In the big points, she had no mistakes."
A championship in Paris might help erase any bitterness left over from 1999, when Hingis lost a rancorous final to Steffi Graf.
Hingis was jeered for cracking her racket, for questioning calls, for walking around the net to examine a mark - a real faux pas.
She was booed for hitting an underhand serve, booed when she lost, and booed some more when, crying uncontrollably, she was escorted by her mother to the trophy presentation.
"I survived it well," Hingis said on Monday, "and I think I've matured over the years."
The biggest intrigue heading into Monday centered on Nadal vs Hewitt.
More specifically: Could Hewitt's grind-it-out style give Nadal fits? Would Nadal dare to munch on bananas after nearly choking during his previous match?
"I ate more carefully than usual," Nadal said with a smile.
As for Hewitt, Nadal dispatched him by repeatedly finding the lines, compiling a 15-4 edge in winners in the first set.
In the third, Nadal broke for a 5-4 lead with a backhand slice that skimmed the net, plopped on the sideline and skidded sideways, out of reach.
"Wasn't a whole heap I could do about it," Hewitt said.
The tireless Australian kept things close for the better part of 2 hours, winning 11 points in a row at one point.
After all, as Nadal put it: "Hewitt is someone who, when you let him grab a finger, he takes the arm."
But, eventually, as happens to most of Nadal's opponents, Hewitt wore down, double-faulting five times in the final set.
Nicole Vaidisova takes on Venus Williams
Fresh off a victory over the world's No 1 player, Nicole Vaidisova wants to savor her first berth in the French Open quarter-finals and resist any temptation to think about winning the tournament.
"That's a lot of steps ahead," said the 17-year-old German-born, Florida-based Czech. "Every match is going to be crazy tough from now on. I would love to win, but there are a lot of very, very good players out there."
That includes VenusWilliams, Vaidisova's opponent on Tuesday. Both rallied to win in the fourth round on Sunday.
Vaidisova played the instigator in Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo's latest home-court meltdown, beating the reigning Australian Open champion 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-2. Williams, the lone remaining American, swept the final four games to beat No 7-seeded Patty Schnyder 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Had Williams lost, there would have been no Americans in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros for the first time in the 38-year Open era.
"Lone flag waving gently in the wind," she said.
Williams has three titles at Wimbledon and none at Roland Garros, but she's optimistic about her chances on the slower surface in Paris.
"Obviously, I like to play aggressively. It's very effective on the clay," she said. "I can still run a lot of balls down, take some pace off if I have to."
She could face a formidable challenge from Vaidisova, whose blonde hair, persistent grunts and big strokes are more than a little reminiscent of Maria Sharapova. Both are products of the Bollettieri Academy in Florida.
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