NEW YORK -- Monica Seles worked hard for her U.S. Open victory Saturday. Venus Williams couldn't have had it much easier.

	Monica Seles lost seven straight games in the middle of the match, but recovered to advance.

Seles overcame a second-set swoon and a windy day to advance to the fourth round of the U.S. Open with a 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 win over qualifier Yoon-Jeong Cho. Then two-time defending champion Williams beat Martina Muller 6-1, 6-2 in 41 minutes.

''It seemed to go a little quickly, but I guess that's a nice thing,'' Williams said.

Seles almost had the same experience. She was within two points of winning, leading 5-1, 0-30 in the second set. Then Cho took the next four points to start a seven-game winning streak that gave her a 1-0 lead in the third set.

''My brain went away from the court,'' the sixth-seeded Seles said.

It was a reversal of Seles' previous match when she was within two points of losing to Barbara Schwartz in the second set before winning a tiebreaker and easily taking the third set.

Williams, seeded second, will face 14th-seeded Chanda Rubin, who beat No. 21 Lisa Raymond 7-6 (2), 6-4. In beating Muller, Williams was outstanding at the net and her serve topped out at 116 mph.

''The whole time she was looking for a way to get into the match. I wasn't able to give her that chance,'' Williams said.

The Open won't get easier for Seles, who now plays Martina Hingis, another past Open champion. Hingis, who missed the French Open and Wimbledon because of ankle surgery, beat Amanda Coetzer 6-3, 6-4 at night.

Seles, the two-time champion and two-time runner-up at the U.S. Open, finally regained her touch Saturday by holding her serve in the second game of the third set, then breaking Cho's when the Korean hit a backhander into the net.

Seles held service in the fourth game for a 3-1 lead and increased that to 5-3 with Cho serving. Seles won the first two points of that game, lost the next, then reached her first match point after Cho hit a forehand long. Cho then hit a forehand wide.

Seles could breathe easier after a seemingly smooth win turned into a struggle. She committed 34 unforced errors compared with Cho's 33. But she reached the fourth round for the eighth straight year.

''If I'm mad, the only person to be mad at is myself,'' Seles said. ''It's so windy out there. It's such an equalizer. You can't time the ball. It makes it very difficult.''

In another matches, seventh-seeded Kim Clijsters beat Vera Zvonareva 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, and Jennifer Capriati followed with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over No. 30 Meghann Shaughnessy.