SUDDENLY BEATABLE

The new trial of Lindsay Davenport

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

In her salad days as the tour's most dominant player (196 nights in all)
Lindsay Davenport owned nearly one and all with her bone-crushing groundstrokes. She beat up Martina Hingis twice, in the '98 U.S. Open and '00 Aussie Open finals and shocked Steffi Graf in her last Slam, '99 Wimbledon. She literally owned Venus during that period, had few problems with Monica
Seles and Mary Pierce, and hung in there with Steffi Graf. The only player she couldn't seem to figure out was Serena Williams.

That was until last year, when she finally got a read on how to beat Serena but let Venus jump over her, in the finals of both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. She started out the year red hot, sustained a back injury at the Italian Open, couldn't get her footing at Roland Garros and then watched Venus learn to how to close out matches from directly across the court.

"It's funny," Davenport said. "When I played Venus in the Wimbledon final last year I wasn't 100 percent and felt like I still did well. But at the U.S. Open, I was heartbroken. I never should have lost that match." The self-described "down to earth person" looked below and saw her foot ache in the pain during the fall but still managed to win Linz and Philly. She was upset by in the first round of the Chase Championships but helped her nation win the Fed Cup over spotty competition.

This year has been no better for Davenport, who was stopped cold by Jennifer
Capriati in the Aussie Open semis, managed to get a slight measure of revenge
on Jennifer by beating her in Scottsdale and then was wasted by Serena
Williams in Indian Wells. Then the roof caved in. She hurt her knee at the
Ericsson Open and then was forced to take three months off. Just prior to
Roland Garros, she discovered that her doubles partner, Corina Morariu, had
cancer and she immediately flew to Florida to be at her friend's bed side.
No Corina is in remission and Davenport is on a seven-match winning streak.
She has yet to play an elite player in her brief comeback but will find out
on Monday where her game exactly is when she faces the raging Yugo, Jelena
Dokic. She expects to dictate from the word go and take out Dokic and maybe
she will, but the question is, will Davenport find it within herself to push
past the Willliamses and Capriati again? Is she ready for another surge to
the top?

"I hope so," she said. "I've been playing well on a surface I like. After
this we're going into the summer hard court season which is my favorite time
of year. The timing would be great. But you never know until you start
winning tournaments."