Pierce too good for Lindsay
 

Paris - Mary Pierce of France rolled back the years to send packing top seed Lindsay Davenport en route to the French Open semi-finals here on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old, champion here in 2000, won at a canter 6-3 6-2 against an opponent who had struggled all tournament on a surface she has always disliked.

The 21st seed will play Russia's Elena Linhovtseva for a place in the final and a crack at a third career Grand Slam title.

For Davenport it was probably the end of her hopes to win the only Grand Slam title that has escaped her.

Pierce came into the match as a slight favourite as she had looked back to her best and Davenport had crawled her way through four successive three-setters on the slow clay.

But it was still embarrassingly one-sided as Pierce went 3-0 up within eight minutes punishing the world No 1 with her scorching groundstrokes.

The Canadian-born Frenchwoman got to 4-0 before Davenport started to pull her game together to get to 4-2.

The seventh game was key as Pierce hit back from 0-40 down to salvage her serve. She then went one set up two games later cashing in on her third set point when Davenport hit a forehand wide.

Pierce redoubled her efforts at the start of the second half after a brief medical pause and she was rewarded with a third break of the Davenport serve.

The 28-year-old American looked like she had lost hope and she went 0-3 down losing her next serve to love.

It was all academic after that even though Pierce missed a match point at 5-0 up on her own serve minutes after her regal progress had been disturbed by the appearance on court of a bare-chested fan with the words "Chirac resign" painted on his chest.

Pierce dropped her serve but two games later she made no mistake going through on her third match point.