Huber, Martinez, Majoli, Davenport advance

Thursday, Jan. 30, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

TOKYO -- Fourth-seeded Anke Huber of Germany overcame a sluggish start on the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium's fast carpet surface today to beat Kimberly Po 6-4, 6-3 in the Pan Pacific Open.

Huber, coming off a fourth-round loss in the Australian Open, fell behind 0-4 in the first set, but broke the American's serve in the fifth game and won the next six games to take control of the second-round match.

"I could have played better but I'm happy that I won the first match which is always difficult," said Huber, who had a first-round bye. "It is difficult if you come from Australia, like my match today, because it's really fast and it's completely different from Australia."

Po changed her strategy in the fifth game because of aching muscles in her left leg, but ended up running more than she planned.

"I kind of changed my tactics, which I probably shouldn't have done because she then was moving me a lot more," Po said. "Until then I made her run more and I was controlling the game. I should have stuck with that."

Huber advanced to a quarterfinal match Friday against sixth-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States, a 6-3, 6-1 winner over wild-card entry Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand.

Defending champion Iva Majoli of Croatia, seeded fifth, beat Japan's Ai Sugiyama 7-5, 7-5 to set up a quarterfinal match with top-ranked German star Steffi Graf, a second-round winner Wednesday.

Australian Open champion Martina Hingis, the 16-year-old Swiss sensation ranked No. 2 in the world, also won her second-round match Wednesday. She will face South Africa's Amanda Coetzer, a 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 winner over seventh-seeded Irina Spirlea of Romania.

In the other quarterfinal, third-seeded Conchita Martinez of Spain will face eighth-seeded Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands. Martinez beat Kristie Boogert of the Netherlands 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 6-3, and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy defeated Naoko Sawamatsu of Japan 7-6 (7-4), 7-5.