Maybe it was "Allez Mar-ee". It sounded like "Ave Mar-ee". Either way Mary Pierce's combination of godliness and tennis has found its way into the bosom of the Parisian crowd.

Dispel any thoughts that this self-possessed player has crushed ice inside.

Pierce smiled and joked along with an interminable Mexican wave while Monica Seles went for a toilet break, and, in the end, torpedoed her way past the third seed in three sets for a chance to upstage her doubles partner and resident bete noir of Roland Garros, Martina Hingis.

One thing is now certain. Semi-finalist Pierce is definitely French, not Canadian. Allez Mary. Seles, a three times winner, was not the only high-ranked seed to make a premature exit in yesterday's quarter-finals.

Using her own experience of winning this French Open three times, Spain's Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario contributed to the American shut-out after a three-set win over fourth seed Venus Williams.

A see-saw match, it first swung 6-0 for Sanchez-Vicario in the first set, then 6-1 for Williams in the second, before the Spaniard's mixed game and raised aggression addled the less experienced 19-year-old.

The match started in an almost empty stadium save for the Sanchez-Vicario extended family and friends who typically occupied a sizeable portion of guest seats.

Afterwards, when a French colleague was asked why the Court Suzanne Lenglen was so empty, he looked at his watch and said "lunch-time".

So the match was played out in an atmosphere which barely rose to that in the canteen and which was certainly at the other end of the spectrum to that of the partisan jamboree involving Seles and Pierce a few hours later.

The Hingis match against Chanda Rubin had the feel of something that could have gone desperately one way, as perhaps the most clever player in the tournament (with Sanchez-Vicario a close second) took to the court against the rank outsider, or the third American, as she was labelled.

Hingis off 12 games to just four in reply in 57 minutes for a 6-1, 6-3 rout.

No shame on Rubin. Simply Hingis demonstrating the rounded game she possesses.

"I'm quite confident," said Hingis. "I mean I have reason to be. I'm in the semi-finals. I played with a lot more power and tried to be aggressive. Just the touch is a little missing."

Facing Pierce and waving a pointy stick in the direction the French crowd with her postmatch comments may not help the Swiss teenager, who has never won here. When it was pointed out that Pierce will draw support which Seles described as like "being on a soccer field", Hingis said: "Last hope for the French."

Chutzpah perhaps, although not the most diplomatic thing to say but the world's number one is prone to jumping in with both feet. "Either the crowd is with you or against you," she said, reducing the issue to something apparently completely out of her control.

What may have been the story of the quarter-finals fell by the wayside in the evening when 28-year-old Conchita Martinez beat 17-year-old compatriot Marta Marrero.

Martinez, the first Spanish winner at the Wimbledon championships in 1994, scrapped for the first set, winning 7-6 on a tie-break, before Marrero was treated for a calf injury. The youngster went down and out 6-1 in the second set.

Semi-finals: M Hingis (1) v M Pierce (6), A Sanchez-Vicario (8) v C Martinez (5).