Tennis: Us Open: New York in Thrall to Power of Davenport

The current state of flux in women's tennis, brought about largely by injury or illness, is best summed up by the fact that if Lindsay Davenport wins the US Open title tomorrow evening she will take over from Belgium's Justin Henin-Hardenne as the world No1. But if Davenport loses the final, or today's semi-final, then France's Amélie Mauresmo, for the first time, will be top of the pile.

The latter scenario is an obvious anomaly which the WTA, the women's ruling body, hopes will not happen. Mauresmo lost in the quarter-finals here against Elena Dementieva of Russia and has only once, back in 1999, appeared in a grand slam final, losing in Melbourne against Switzerland's Martina Hingis.

The French woman has had a successful year, winning tournaments in Berlin, Rome, and Montreal as well as reaching three grand slam quarter-finals and a semi-final - Wimbledon - but her propensity for choking at crucial moments hardly warrants the No1 position and its accolades.

Davenport, who today meets the 19-year-old Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, first reached the No1 spot in October 1998, the year she won the US Open, the first of her three grand slam titles that include Wimbledon (1999) and the Australian Open (2000).

The 28-year-old Californian has been the outstanding form player this summer, winning four consecutive US hard-court titles in Stanford, Los Angeles, San Diego and Cincinnati, and extending her unbeaten run here to 22 matches.

Her 6-1, 6-1 quarter-final win over Japan's Shinobu Asagoe on Wednesday night, after a day of hard rain, was completed in little more than three quarters of an hour in front of about 300 spectators. "I didn't care if there were 100 people or 10. But at 6-1, 5-1 I thought, 'If it rains again, I'm going to die' - then I started to hurry it up a bit," she laughed.

After losing to Maria Sharapova from a winning position in the semi-finals at Wimbledon, Davenport had again talked, as she has throughout this year, about the possibility of retirement. Currently the topic has been dropped, for obvious reasons.

She has never played Kuznetsova before, not even in doubles. "And I haven't spent tons of time watching her on television," said Davenport, who spent yesterday mugging up a little on the Russian.

Kuznetsova is highly regarded by Martina Navratilova, with whom she played doubles, and has crept up quietly in the shadows of Sharapova, the Wimbledon champion, Anastasia Myskina, this year's winner at Roland Garros, and Dementieva, who in today's second semi-final plays Jennifer Capriati.

Kuznetsova defeated her fellow Russian Nadia Petrova 7-6, 6-3 to reach her first grand slam semi-final. "I know that the crowd are going to be against me when I play Lindsay, but maybe I can do something to get them on my side," said the Russian teenager, who like Mauresmo has a tendency to suffer badly from nerves. During this year's French Open she held a 6-1, 3-1 lead over Myskina and then had a match point before losing 8-6 in the third set of their fourth-round match.

"I had the match in my hands but I started to rush and do different things," said Kuznetsova, who has an aggressive game with a powerful serve. "And after that she goes on to win the title. I mean, this is weird." It is a word that frequently crops up in her conversations, and the majority of Americans would consider it mighty weird if she were to beat Davenport.

The New York public, to say nothing of CBS, have their eyes firmly set on a Davenport-Capriati final. Two Americans and two 28-year-olds - a golden Saturday evening for two golden oldies.

"It would be a good storyline," said Davenport, "but I'd rather talk about it when we are both there. Last year we were both in the semis and we lost to the Belgians."