MELBOURNE, Jan 24: Martina Hingis was one match away from breaking her Grand Slam barren spell after reaching the Australian Open final Thursday, but to do so she will have to wreak revenge on her 2001 conqueror Jennifer Capriati.

Hingis, seeded third this year, marched into her sixth consecutive Melbourne Park final, blemishing Monica Seles’s extraordinary Open record with a 4-6 6-1 6-4 victory.

In the men’s singles, Swede Thomas Johansson later fought back from an alarming mid-match slump to beat Czech Jiri Novak 7-6 0-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 and reach his first grand slam final.

He will play either seventh seed Tommy Haas of Germany or Russian ninth seed Marat Safin in Sunday’s championship decider. Haas and Safin meet in the second semifinal on Friday.

Defending women’s champion Capriati fought off a mighty challenge from fourth seed Kim Clijsters 7-5 3-6 6-1 to set up Saturday’s repeat of last year’s final.

For Seles the loss was only her third defeat in 42 Australian Open matches.

Seles overpowered Hingis in the opening set but the exertion soon took its toll.

Hingis used all her guile and court craft to bounce back in the second set and eased away from Seles in the decider. The American staged a late rally to come back from 5-2 down but pushed a forehand wide on Hingis’s second match point.

Hingis will have to be at her best to live with Capriati in the final as the American is looking stronger and more powerful than ever.

The top seed rebuffed Clijsters to reach her second successive Australian Open final.

Clijsters marshalled the baseline well but Capriati’s power overwhelmed her. The Belgian did well to claw back the second set but Capriati powered her way through in 97 minutes.

Johansson had appeared likely to fall short after Novak completely dominated the middle stages of the match, the Swede littering the court with 63 unforced errors.

But he gradually fought his way back against 26th seed Novak and broke the Czech’s serve for only the third time in the match in the final game of the fifth set.

RESULTS (prefix number denotes seeding):