NEW YORK -- Martina Hingis, dashing desperately along the baseline, had worked herself into a position of modest opportunity. Down a single service break at 3-5 in the first set, Hingis needed to solve Serena Williams' savage serve to get back in the semifinal match.

	Martina Hingis was not able to return enough of Serena Williams serves Friday aftenoon.

Williams' definitive answer: Ace, unreturnable serve, ace, ace.

Game, set and, in a scant 51 minutes, match to Williams, who brutalized Hingis 6-3, 6-2 on Friday at the National Tennis Center. Williams, the No. 10 seed, will play her sister Venus Williams, who beat Jennifer Capriati 6-4, 6-2, Saturday night for the U.S. Open title.

Hingis, the world's No. 1-ranked player, had beaten Williams in their past three meetings, but this had to be embarrassing, even humiliating. A bug splattered on a windshield, at least, doesn't have to endure a post-match press conference.

"Sometimes, you know, just mentally I was too passive," Hingis said. "She just played well. She played smart. Waited for her chances. Hit winners.

"Just better today. That's all."

Williams, whose ranking has slipped because of injuries and inactivity, said she was motivated to win.

"Not only did I want it," she said, "but I also needed it. I'm pretty low ranked. With someone with my name to be No. 10 is pretty absurd. I felt I didn't really like it in that position I was in."

It was, for the record, the worst loss Hingis has experienced in 43 matches at the U.S. Open. It was, as the numbers suggest, a nearly perfect match for Williams.

In the bottom-line department of winners, Williams had a stunning margin of 40-5. Williams, if it's possible, was even more dominant in the area of the serve: she had 10 aces, compared to 0 for Hingis. In the second set, all 17 of her first serves were in, including a 117 mph ace. Williams' ability to knock around Hingis' tepid first (80 to 90 mph) and second serves (60s to 70s) was the difference in the match.

"I couldn't read her serve," Hingis said. "I didn't know whether she was going forehand or backhand. Yeah, she was hitting the lines and the corners. It was difficult to even reach it. Even [when] I got there, there's not much I could do with it."

Hingis has won five major titles, but she has failed now in her past 11 Grand Slams. Make no mistake, she has heard the criticism. Hingis has remained at the top of the women's rankings for 204 consecutive weeks, frankly, because she plays more tournaments than anyone and manages to stay relatively healthy. Hingis consistently beats the people she is supposed to but, increasingly, she has consistently lost to the elite players.

In terms of experience, Hingis had the vast edge over Williams. Hingis, 20, has now appeared in 18 Grand Slam semifinals, compared to just two for Williams, who is 19. In fact, Hingis' total is one more than the other three semifinalists combined.

On Friday, it mattered not.

For Hingis, it was a steep slope from the very beginning. Williams hit the line for a winner on the first point and seemed to accelerate from there. Hingis, who has made a living feasting on the cupcakes of the women's tour, now knows what it's like to be Laura Granville (who she blistered 6-2, 6-0 in the first round) or Lina Krasnoroutskaya (a 6-0, 6-2 second-round victim).

Hingis was broken in the second game because Williams stroked four winners, the last a gorgeous forehand down the line. Hingis, to her credit, broke back but Williams returned the favor in the fourth and sixth games.

When Hingis broke back in the seventh game and held serve, she had worked herself into a mildly encouraging 3-5 situation. Now, if only she could break Williams for a third time. The answer, we now know, was no.

On auto-pilot, Hingis survived to 2-all in the second set before she just sort of crumpled into a heap. Williams won the last four games and took the match with a bullet down the middle that Hingis was lucky to get a racket on.

The serve, Williams acknowledged, was the thing.

"I really have been working on that. I didn't imagine in my wildest dreams that it would have been 100 percent [in the second set]. Oh, my."

Imagine the frustration that Hingis is feeling. This was her chance to make a statement, to beat Williams in a meaningful match -- as she did in the Australian Open quarterfinals. Instead, she has now lost to Serena (twice) and Venus in the past three U.S. Opens.

Does she need to make fundamental changes in her game, notably punch up her serve, or was this just a bad day at the office, one day, one match in a marvelous career?

"It's not one day, one match," Hingis said. "It's the semifinals of the U.S. Open. At the end of the day you have to take it like that because if you want to go on and continue to play at the top level, you have to [change].

"You just have to stay in the game with the serve. [I have to] do something more out of my service games because you can't count on she's going to double-fault."