Jana Novotna ousted Martina Hingis and will face Nathalie Tauziat in the final. (AP)

WIMBLEDON, England, July 2 — Jana Novotna did her best to control the anticipation when she stood up from her chair during the final changeover of her Wimbledon semifinal today, and walked to the baseline to serve for the match. Martina Hingis — her friend, her foe, and her main obstacle to a much-coveted title — stood at the other end of the court, her hopes of a repeat championship distressingly thin. And the Centre Court crowd was roaring, ready to see a long-suffering tennis veteran take a giant leap toward finally getting her due.

Novotna may not have been serving for the championship at that moment, but it certainly seemed that way. Earlier in the day, unheralded Nathalie Tauziat had sputtered her way to a 1-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-3, victory over unseeded Natasha Zvereva in the other semifinal. Watching that match, it was impossible not to walk away feeling that the Novotna-Hingis semifinal — which pitted the No. 1 player in the world, Hingis, against No. 3 — would be this year's de facto final, or at least the highest-quality match played in the women's draw on these final days of Wimbledon.

Novotna and Hingis did not disappoint. In a beautiful match, one packed with marvelously played and marvelously long points, Novotna took revenge on the woman who beat her in the final last summer, capturing a 6-4, 6-4 victory. After it was over, after Hingis hit her final return into the net, Novotna knelt on the grass court she knows well, and raised a fist into the air.

At 29, Novotna will face the 30-year-old Tauziat Saturday in what will be the oldest women's final in more than 20 years.

"This one doesn't compare to anything," Novotna said. "Beating Martina Hingis in the semifinals of Wimbledon is a very special occasion."

Novotna will be making her third appearance in the final at Wimbledon, the Grand Slam best suited to her athletic, serve-and-volley game. Her first final, in 1993, ended in tears, as she collapsed in the third set against Steffi Graf, then buried her face in the Duchess of Kent's shoulder, forever endearing her to the Wimbledon crowd. Her second appearance came last summer, when Hingis beat her 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. Remembering that match well, Novotna had a few words for her nemesis when they met at the net to shake hands today.

"You beat me last year," Novotna said, with a smile. "and I gave it to you back now!"

"Yes you did!" Hingis answered, then the two wrapped their arms around each other and walked to the chair umpire together, smiles on both their faces.

Hingis, 17, is a four-time Grand Slam titlist, Novotna is still seeking her first. Theirs, though, is a special tennis friendship, one forged as doubles' partners — the two returned to the court together later this afternoon for a women's doubles' match — and cemented by the fact that the Czech-born Hingis speaks Novotna's native language.

Novotna said afterward that her relationship with Hingis made the match all the more "emotional" for her. And Hingis admitted that she now was pulling for her friend.

"She deserves it," Hingis said.

Hingis, grinning, also said that she was picking Novotna because "if she beats me, she should win the whole tournament, you know?"

Hingis certainly did not expect to be sitting out the Wimbledon final — not after the way she played last year. As a 16-year-old, Hingis ruled women's tennis: She made all four Grand Slam finals, won three, and amassed enough points to claim the No. 1 ranking for the year long before summer had come to an end.

This year has been different. Hingis started off with a win at the Australian Open, but now has lost in the semifinals of the French Open (to Monica Seles) and Wimbledon. And today she was unable to outplay, and outsmart, Novotna the way she had on this court a year ago.

"I was up 3-0 and 40-0 and after that it changed like this," Hingis said, waving her hand. "Everything just stuck in the net, and nothing would come over anymore, and I was sometimes a little bit unlucky, but she was great at the net."

Aggressive at the outset, Hingis won the first nine points of the match and literally told herself, "You can't lose this set anymore," before doing just that. Her problems carried into the second, when she was broken in the first game, then she righted herself to take a 3-2 lead.

After that, three of the next four games were marathons, both players winning long, intricate points and both players battling to hold serve. Twice in the seventh game, Hingis served aces on break points — they were her only two of the match — and when she walked back to the baseline after the second, she playfully flexed her arm muscles for the crowd.

Those two points, though, were rarities; more common was the point Novotna won to break Hingis and go up 5-4 before the final changeover. At the net, as is her habit, Novotna backhanded an overhead for a winner, leaving Hingis to roll her eyes at the impossibility of it all. It was, after all, hard for Hingis to believe that she'd have more difficulty beating Novotna at 29 than she did beating her at 28.

"She's not the youngest player on the tour anymore," Hingis said, then shrugged. "Sometimes it seems like the older the better. If you see Tauziat on the other side in the finals, it's amazing, you know. I hope it's going to be like that with me also — the older, the smarter, the cleverer, the better."

After 42 career Grand Slams, Tauziat made her first appearance in a semifinal today, and she played as if she were trying to hold on by her fingernails rather than forge ahead. She double-faulted on the first point of the match and was nearly helpless in the first set, then slogged her way through the second, watching, and waiting, for Zvereva to collapse.

Zvereva obliged. The 27-year-old from Belarus played a miserable second-set tiebreaker, then could not hold herself together in the third set. So after upsetting Graf and Seles (victories that she herself still sees as having been wildly improbable), Zvereva saw her magic carpet ride come to an end.

"I'm so tired," she said. "I need a mental institution break."