A Day for Mac and the Powers That Be : U.S. Open: Serena Williams and Davenport emerge to show force is with women--despite Krajicek’s record 48 aces.

NEW YORK — The big hitters were out at the U.S. Open tennis tournament Wednesday, sending rockets back and forth across the net in matchups that stressed muscle and power. They also let the men play some matches.

Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams pounded their way into the women’s singles semifinals with victories that had the huge crowds here buzzing about how hard the women hit the ball.

Serena Williams, who outhammered Monica Seles in a night match, finished off the 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Seles with a 115-mph service winner. She served 15 aces in the match.

“Fifteen aces, wow!” Serena said afterward, flexing the right biceps on her 5-foot-10, 150-pound frame during the interview.

Lindsay Davenport, who plays at 6-3 and 175 and blasted her way to last year’s U.S. Open title, went toe-to-toe with 5-10, 150 Mary Pierce and barely lived for another day, surviving two match points in her 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 victory. Davenport had nine aces, Pierce five and the two combined for 75 winners, Pierce 39 and Davenport 36.

Afterward, Davenport admitted that, despite her own power game, Pierce had her backed up for much of the match. “Today, I was just on my heels a lot,” she said. “A lot of [women] players hit hard these days.”

Indeed, a few years ago, broadcaster Mary Carillo labeled the advent of the Pierces and Davenports as the age of “Big Babe” tennis. Wednesday, it was in full bloom. It isn’t a coincidence that this year’s women’s semifinals include no Amanda Coetzers or Arantxa Sanchez-Vicarios. Small and speedy doesn’t seem to cut it these days. Defensive tennis, retrieving and counterpunching, has gone the way of the wooden racket.

During the Williams-Seles match, USA Network did a tribute to Tracy Austin, its color commentator, who won this U.S. Open title 20 years ago. They showed a clip of Austin against Chris Evert in their title match and the two kind of patted the ball back and forth gently. Were either to go out on the court against any of Wednesday’s quarterfinalists, one would fear for their safety.

Interestingly, the two men’s quarterfinals Wednesday, while featuring some of the usual level of testosterone, were won by shotmakers and angle specialists Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andre Agassi.

Kafelnikov won what he admitted was one of the toughest victories of his career, surviving a bullet-serving Richard Krajicek, 7-6 (7-0), 7-6 (7- 4), 3-6, 1-6, 7-6 (7-5), in a 3-hour 20-minute match in which Krajicek served a pro-tour record 48 aces.

In the last three sets, Krajicek was regularly hitting serves in the 130-135 range, leaving the third-seeded Russian dazed.

“I would have never thought he was going to do that after 2 1/2 hours of playing,” Kafelnikov said.

Kafelnikov’s escape allowed him to get to the semifinal matchup he has been predicting for the entire tournament. He will face Agassi, a 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, 6-4 winner in the late night match over France’s Nicolas Escude. Kafelnikov is seeded third, Agassi second, and with the early departures of Pete Sampras and Patrick Rafter because of injuries, Kafelnikov versus Agassi becomes the men’s glamour matchup.

Or, the way Serena Williams sees things, there are no men’s glamour matches. The women have all of them these days.

“We’re carrying men’s tennis,” she said.

One women’s glamour semifinal will pit No. 7 Serena against No. 2 Davenport, and they may have to reinforce the back walls for that one.

“Lindsay hits the ball hard, I hit the ball hard,” Serena Williams said. “It’s gonna be a fun match.”

The other semifinal will pit Serena’s big sister, 6-1, 170 Venus Williams, seeded No. 3, against Martina Hingis, seeded No. 1, and the only relative middleweight on this tennis card, at 5-7, 135.

The advance of the Williams sisters--their father, Richard, predicted last week that they would meet in the final--marks the first time since 1897 that sisters have made the semifinals of a United States championship event the same year. In 1897, it was done by sisters Juliette and Kathleen Atkinson of Maplewood, N.J.

“It’s always been a goal, me and Venus to get this far,” Serena said. “And now, it’s so close [to a final].”

Seles, who at 5-11 and 155 is heavier and slower than she wants to be and is working on her fitness, used to be the poster child for hard hitters not too many years ago, when she grunted and whacked her way to nine Grand Slam event titles. But her most recent was the 1996 Australian Open, and even a player with her power is feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the newer versions on the tour.

“She’s physically a lot stronger than I am,” said Seles, who won the first set when Serena Williams just overhit too much. But Seles found herself overpowered the rest of the way. “She gets a lot more balls back than I do and her reach is longer.”

Davenport had a similar situation with Pierce. The reigning Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion slugged with her opponent in the first set and let Pierce eventually overhit. But soon, Davenport was against the ropes, as Pierce began to hit the lines she had been missing.

Davenport was suddenly facing a match point with Pierce serving at 5-4 of the third, and it took all the poise and experience she has gathered in her run to the top of women’s tennis that started here last year to win out in this dramatic Ashe Stadium match.

Davenport saved the first match point with a cross-court backhand winner, then survived the second when a cross-court backhand by Pierce barely missed the sideline.

“It wasn’t like it was an inch wide,” Davenport said. “But it was close, maybe about this much.” She held her hands about four inches apart.

Pierce eventually netted a backhand and things were even, at 5-5. But before Davenport could serve, rain began to sprinkle and the two left the court for 65 minutes before being able to continue.

When they returned, Davenport quickly showed a steely resolve, serving for 6-5 and, getting to a second match point with just enough slugging to entice Pierce to slug harder. She did on an errant forehand and, 2 hours 1 minute after it started, it was over when Pierce, succumbing to nerves, hit a second serve five feet long.

Davenport talked about facing those match points, being inches away from being out of the event she won last year.

“You can’t help but get nervous,” she said. “Anyone who says they don’t get nervous is lying. But I feel so much better about playing tight matches than I did two or three years ago. . . . I was enjoying the challenge.”

It took Agassi six minutes less than Davenport to win his best-of-five-set match, ending the run of Escude, the first qualifier ever to get to the men’s quarterfinals here. The winner of Agassi’s semifinal with Kafelnikov will become, with Sampras out for a while, No. 1 in the men’s rankings, effective Monday. The result of the final will have no bearing on that.

Perhaps the most disconsolate on this long day of emotional ebbs and flows was Krajicek, the Dutchman who did everything he could to serve and volley his way into the bracket opposite Agassi. When asked about his 48-ace record for men’s tennis, breaking the record of 46 by Goran Ivanisevic in a five-set loss to Magnus Norman in 1997 at Wimbledon, Krajicek said, “I’d rather hit 15 or whatever he [Kafelnikov] hit and be in the semifinals.”

Today’s Featured Matches

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* Cedric Pioline, France, vs. Gustavo Kuerten (5), Brazil

* Slava Dosedel, Czech Republic, vs. Todd Martin (7)