Wimbledon: Davenport Sounds Warning

Lindsay Davenport left Wimbledon last year believing she may have played her last match at the All England club. Yesterday, with a 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 fourth-round victory over Belgium's Kim Clijsters, she sounded the warning that she may be the biggest threat to Maria Sharapova's quest to retain the title that has made the 18-year-old Russian a multi-millionaire.

Retirement rather than titles were uppermost in the mind of the 29-year-old Californian after she lost to Sharapova in the semi-final a year ago. She had led 6-2, 3-1 but then succumbed to one of the Russian's famed comebacks. Suddenly the world was all gloom.

She complained of not feeling the same kind of excitement before matches and after victories, while the defeats were beginning to hurt less. "I'd be surprised if I was back," said Davenport, who won the Wimbledon title in 1999, the second of her three grand slam titles. The others were the 1998 US Open and the 2000 Australian Open.

But she recovered her appetite during the US hard court season, notable when she defeated the Williams sisters back to back. A little to her own surprise Davenport recaptured the world No 1 ranking last October which she has held ever since, and after yesterday's win over Clijsters she cannot lose it this week.

In Indian Wells this year Davenport beat Sharapova 6-0, 6-0 - a double bagel that is bound to have some sort of psychological impact on the world No2 should they meet in the final on Saturday. "She's probably the biggest and most consistent hitter out there, and when she is in the mood she can simply knock you off the court" the Russian said.

Davenport came into the Clijsters match with the Belgian holding a 9-7 advantage, Indeed before this year's French Open she had won six in succession. A seventh had looked a certainty in the fourth round at Roland Garros, but Davenport turned around a 6-1, 3-1 deficit, a result that gave her added confidence coming into Wimbledon.

After beating Clijsters in Paris, Davenport lost rather tamely to Mary Pierce in the quarter-finals of the French Open, but clay has always been her least favourite surface, taking the edge off her immense power, and troubling footwork which has never been of the twinkle-toes variety. However, once Davenport planted her feet on the Wimbledon grass her confidence flooded back.

Clijsters has had a difficult time of it over the last 18 months, with a serious wrist injury causing her to miss all but the Australian Open in 2004. She returned this year and almost immediately won major back-to-back tournaments in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne only to suffer a knee injury that threatened to ruin her summer.

However Clijsters won the pre-Wimbledon tournament at Eastbourne, which increased her belief that she might do well at Wimbledon. Yesterday's match against was obviously critical to that hope, but apart from a glitch in the second set, the American hit the ball altogether too cleanly and too powerfully to allow the Belgian, who is currently outside the top 10, any lasting momentum.

They exchanged breaks of serve at the beginning of the first set, and thereafter Davenport pulled clear. The No15 seed's plan had been to move Davenport around, and get her off balance. This is always the aim of the American's opponents, but most quickly learn that is far easier said than done, as did the Belgian. Once in her zone of comfort Davenport strikes the ball with a most tremendous clump, and this was one of those days.

Clijsters, a considerable athlete, scurried and scampered around in the second set, saving a match point at 5-4 when Davenport when slightly awry with a backhand winner. "You start thinking, 'Why didn't I just make it, or hit it cross court.'"

Ideally she would have preferred to win in two sets to conserve energy, because today she plays Svetlana Kuznetsova, the US Open champion, in the quarter-final, having lost to the Russian in the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows last year.

"I'm going to have to come down from my little high and start again, but I knew the match against Kim would be a tough one to get by, and it has really lifted my confidence." Sharapova, meanwhile, may be averting her eyes from any sightings of bagels in Wimbledon village.