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'The Body' dumps the 'Spice Girl'

The glamour match of the Toshiba Tennis Classic almost turned into a game between the physically handicapped, as Mary Pierce and Venus Williams went head to head.

Pierce defeated third seed Venus Williams 2-6 7-6 (7-3) 4-0 in the $450,000 tournament, and then both players talked tough.

"I think if I wasn't hurt I would've won that match," said Williams, who was playing Pierce for the first time.

"I wish we could have gone on and finished the match," Pierce said. "I would have liked to have completed the win."

Ironically, Pierce herself was on the verge of retiring, after she hurt her wrist in the opening set and experienced trouble gripping the racket.

Williams lost the Bank of West classic, last week, to Lindsay Davenport when her left leg played up in the final. This time round, the problem recurred after she looked, in previous rounds, as if she was recovering.

The trouble has been diagnosed as patellar tendinitis.

Williams took the opening set, and was leading 6-5 in the second when she needed attention from WTA trainer Liz Chafin for an ache in her left knee. Hobbling from that point on, the teen star lost in the tie breaker.

Chapin then added a bigger bandage to the kneecap area before Williams made another effort to play on. Pierce's forehand winner gave her a 4-0 lead, and Williams called it quits.

"I thought maybe I could still win the match but I found I was really in a false reality," said Williams. "When I realized it, I quit. I couldn't give it my best effort and if I can't do that, I shouldn't be playing."

Pierce will now play world number one Martina Hingis in the semifinals. The French star has won 4 of the 7 games the two have played against each other. "Every match against her is a challenge," Pierce said of Hingis. "We bring the best out of each other."

The other semifinal pairing also produced its share of injury, with fourth seed Monica Seles battling painful back spasms in a 6-4, 6-3 win over Ai Sugiyama, who had accounted for Steffi Graf in the second round.

Seles will now play Lindsay Davenport, the world number two who defeated Wimbledon runner-up Nathalie Tauziat of France 6-4 6-3.

Tauziat had defeated Davenport in the quarterfinal of Wimbledon.

Seles's back spasms were caused when, during the Federation Cup games in July, she sat for over eight hours cheering the US team, then endured an 18 hour flight back home.

"I've played so many matches through pain where I couldn't walk," she said. "It's not something that's smart to do. But I'll just go on how I feel, pretty much. I may take off next week if it gets really bad, or maybe the next day."