by Robin Millard

LONDON - Japanese number one Ai Sugiyama has a secret recipe for beating her next opponent at Wimbledon - but is keeping her Daniela Hantuchova demolition plan close to her chest.

The pair are good friends but have both been on the circuit long enough to figure out each other's game.

Veteran Sugiyama, who reached the quarter-finals here in 2004, made it to the third round at Wimbledon with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 victory over Spanish qualifier Arantxa Parra Santonja on Wednesday.

Meanwhile Slovakia's Hantuchova knocked out Chinese 16th seed Zheng Jie. Sugiyama said she was "definitely" expecting a tough battle on her hands. "It's good to be in the third round playing against each other, not the first round," the 33-year-old said.

"We are very close friends, but on the court we can be very professional, so it's no problem for both of us."

Sugiyama said she knew Hantuchova's game "very, very well" but would not be giving away her strategy for beating her.

"It's a secret. But I know how she plays and she knows how I play. It's a lot of mental game."

Sugiyama is 6-4 ahead in head-to-head clashes between the pair and won their last two matches.

However, Hantuchova, 26, won their only clash on grass, at Eastbourne in 2004.

Sugiyama, the world number 38, was pushed hard by 206-ranked Parra Santonja in the first set and was set point down but was able to break her opponent's serve in the second.

"She was playing really good, especially her service game," she told AFP.

"I think I won four points of that. The key was my service game, and it was always deuce, deuce, deuce and long games, but I just started to hold my service and somehow tried to get my rhythm.

"In the tie-breaker I was really one point here and there, and luckily - I was down 5-3, so I just tried to hang in there, and she played really good on the first set.

"That's all I could do, but somehow I got through, so it was good." Sugiyama won in an hour and 28 minutes on Court 18.

All 12 games in the first set went with serve, though Parra Santonja put far more pressure on Sugiyama's serve than vice versa.

The 26-year-old Spaniard had set point at 6-5, but Sugiyama clawed it back to deuce and won the game when her opponent could not return serve.

The qualifier went 4-1 up in the tie-break, but Sugiyama clung on and squared it at 5-5 before breaking Parra Santonja to win the decider 7-5. The second set was an entirely different affair, with several breaks of serve.

Sugiyama broke again then won it with two match points to spare when the Spaniard shot long. -AFP