It was 1998 and a 22 year-old LINDSAY DAVENPORT was just beginning to fulfill her promise. She finished as runner-up in the INDIAN WELLS tournament in March, and then won pre US OPEN tournaments in Stanford, Los Angeles and San Diego before capturing her first Grand Slam title at the 1998 US OPEN, beating then number 1 MARTINA HINGIS. LINDSAY went on to win WIMBLEDON in 1999 and the AUSTRALIAN in 2000 for her 3 major victories.
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LINDSAY posing for the fan papparazi.
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LINDSAY took time out to thank the ball staff,
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and pose with them.
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Since then it has been a series of injuries to her knees and her foot. But LINDSAY may have found her way back to top form. “98 was a fantastic run, and I feel like I’m in the same position,” she said Sunday as she won her second consecutive tournament, the previous one last weekend in Stanford. And, she finished as runner-up at Indian Wells this year, losing to JUSTIN HENIN-HARDENNE. She is off to San Diego to compete in the Acura Classic at La Costa. Is it all just a little bit of history repeating?
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VENUS had LINDSAY'S number to start their quarterfinal match.
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LINDSAY shook off other historical artifacts over the last 2 weeks. To win the Bank of the West final at Stanford, she had to overcome 6 straight losses over 4 years to VENUS WILLIAMS. In Saturday’s semifinals she consolidated that accomplishment with a 7-5 2-0 win over a retiring VENUS. After jumping out to a 5-0 lead, VENUS lost 9 straight games and retired in the 90-degree heat, giving LINDSAY her 2nd consecutive victory over her former nemesis. WILLIAMS’ explanations to the media after the match were tortured at best. She was non-committal on whether she would seek treatment, saying “It’s always best to have some tests…I’ve just learned these days whether you get an MRI, a bone scan, a million tests, all that matters is how you feel.”
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VENUS didn't seem to be bothered by the wrist en route to a 5-0 lead, though the sun was a challenge.
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Apparently she sustained the injury to her right wrist after tying her shoe during a practice session at 11am just before her 1pm match. As she pushed herself up, she felt a strain in her wrist, and there just wasn’t time to treat it properly. VENUS was upset, but she laughed to the press saying “my goal this summer was to get into the top 10. If I had been healthy today, for sure I would have won the match.” When pressed on the extent of the injury she said she would play at Carlsbad this week. SERENA is also scheduled there. (She appeared briefly in the pressroom during SERENA’S closing press conference sporting a blue soft cast on her right wrist but refused to answer any questions as to the extent of her injury.)
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VENUS getting retaped, up 5-2 in the first set.
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LINDSAY biding her time during the retaping process.
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So LINDSAY went into the final against SERENA, who survived the best match of the tournament Friday night in the quarterfinals against VERA ZVONAREVA, the 19-year old Russian who was seeded 8th at this tournament. The night saw the first 5,000 attendees get a SERENA WILLIAMS bobble-head doll, and SERENA nearly bobbled away the match. ZVONAREVA was on her game, moving WILLIAMS all over court, and painting the lines for winners. WILLIAMS was not on her game, but managed to survive in 3 sets 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. SERENA had a comparatively easy semifinal match Saturday night beating ELENA DIMENTIEVA 6-3, 7-6(2). DIMENTIEVA had 15 double faults in that match, at one point missing 9 straight serves, double-faulting away the entire 4th game of the match.
| ELENA DIMENTIEVA during her stretch of 9 straight faults wherin she double-faulted an entire service game to SERENA WILLIAMS. |
Coming into Sunday’s final, LINDSAY had only won 2 of the 12 matches against SERENA, one of them being their very first meeting in 1997. The other win was 4 years ago in the quarterfinals of the US OPEN. SERENA has had LINDSAY’S number other than that.
But DAVENPORT loves to play in Southern California. Both girls are from this area, and trained here, LINDSAY 15 minutes to the south in Palos Verdes and SERENA 5 minutes to the northeast in Compton. But DAVENPORT has been in the finals of this tournament 8 of the last 9 years, and had won it 3 previous times before yesterday.
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LINDSAY'S serve was in fine form during this tournament.
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She came out smoking in the first set, getting 66% of her first serves in and making only 1 unforced error. “That’s a miracle for me and how I play, the shots I go for,” LINDSAY commented afterwards. By comparison SERENA had 14 unforced errors in the first set. DAVENPORT won it surprisingly easy, 6-1. The numbers were a bit more even in the second set, but LINDSAY stayed strong, double faulting only once, hitting 6 winners and making fewer unforced errors than WILLIAMS for a 6-3 win in straight sets.
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LINDSAY DAVENPORT had SERENA doing the splits on break point 5-3, winning the match 2 points later as SERENA'S slump implies.
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SERENA described her play as “committing suicide out there…I really had opportunities, I just didn’t take them.” Though she did give DAVEPORT credit for playing well in her interview in the stadium, in the press room WILLIAMS credited her loss to an “awful, terrible, horrendous, miserable, horrible day.”
The win completed a dream week for DAVENPORT, with rare back-to-back wins over VENUS and SERENA WILLIAMS, no small feat. It was her 10th tournament victory in California, a place she really enjoys playing. DAVENPORT figures she’s in the top few seeds for the US OPEN, depending on whether KIM CLIJSTERS or JUSTIN HENIN-HARDENNE competes.
For the US OPEN, SERENA needs to “get serious, and really concentrate…I didn’t play today, so it’s hard…But that’s the past and I’m really focused on the present and the future…I’m not disappointed because I know I can play better.” Those words to the media followed a Saturday night press conference where SERENA told reporters their jaws would drop to the floor if they knew how little she did off the court to prepare. After losing to MARIA SHARAPOVA at WIMBLEDON SERENA said she was playing at 5% of her game. After Saturday’s victory over DIMENTIEVA she figured she was playing 20-30%, but that her prime was still off in the future. “Even when I was winning I was playing at 40%…I just get away with my athleticism. I think when you’re a little athletic then you just kind of relax a little bit.”
Whether that future with a 100% SERENA will ever come is unknown, but it’s hard to imagine her playing any better than she was during 2002-2003 when she held all 4 major titles at the same time, a “SERENA slam”, and dominated the tour. She's not back to that level yet.
With the win LINDSAY picked up $93,000 and expands her point total to 30 in the US OPEN SERIES race, as well as widens her lead in the WTA tour championship points. She is the leader in that race too, with the top 8 finishers playing in the season ending tournament at Staples. By the way, that's also in California, in November, when all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray, in LINDSAY land.
The tournament set records for attendance in Southern California for a women’s tennis event, with 8,161 for the final on Sunday, and more than 50,000 for the week, which had fan highlights Friday with the doll giveaway, Saturday with free tennis rackets and Saturday night with a fireworks show.
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SERENA gets airborn on her serve against ELENA DIMENTIEVA before a full house at HOME DEPOT CENTER.
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