The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Davenport gets past Dechy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 19, 2005

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Davenport gets past Dechy

INDIAN WELLS, MARCH 18. Top-ranked Lindsay Davenport swept aside seventh-seeded Nathalie Dechy of France 7-6 (2), 6-0 to reach the Pacific Life Open semifinals on Thursday.

Defending men's champion Roger Federer ran his match mark for the year to 24-1 with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Germany's Nicolas Kiefer in their quarterfinal. No. 1 Federer is looking for his fourth tournament title of the year.

Giullermo Canas of Argentina also advanced to the men's semifinals with a 7-6 (1), 7-5 victory over Britain's Tim Henman, who played for the title in two of the last three years.

Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova avenged an earlier loss to Frenchwoman Mary Pierce with a 6-4, 6-3 victory. Pierce beat her in three sets in the third round of last year's U.S. Open, their only other match.

Paes-Zimonjic bow out

In the doubles event India's Leander Paes and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia-Montenegro crashed out, losing in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

The sixth seeded pair gave a tough fight to top seeds Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Daniel Nestor of Canada before going down 3-6, 6-4, 2-6.

Sharapova, a 17-year-old Russian, improved her match record this year to 17-1, with the only defeat a taut, three-set loss to eventual champion Serena Williams in the Australian Open semifinals.

Davenport's victory was her third over the French player in the past year — including the 2004 Indian Wells semifinals — and seventh in as many career meetings.

Davenport has lost just two sets — in the 1997 and 2005 Australian Open — in their matches.

She didn't seem to get warmed up this time until the tiebreaker, when she shot out to a 6-1 lead, hit a forehand long, then won it when Dechy slapped a forehand return into the net.

After making 23 unforced errors and double-faulting four times in the opening set, Davenport took control of her game and the match in the second.

Davenport began the set by breaking Dechy's serve, then had only four unforced errors and no double-faults as she took just 22 minutes — compared to 64 in the first set — to finish off Dechy.

``I let her back (in the first set) so many times,'' Davenport said. ``Both games up 40-love, was serving, got broken both of those.

``Once I held to get to 6-all, I never really looked back from that point.''

Disappointed

Dechy obviously was disappointed, especially with the second set. ``The first set was a pretty good level of tennis, then I dropped mine in the second set and she raised hers,'' said Dechy, ranked No. 14.

``She started playing really well when she was down 6-5.''

Davenport won the Indian Wells title in 1997 and 2000, and made the finals three other times. She lost to Martina Hingis in 1998, to Kim Clijsters in 2003 and to Justine Henin-Hardenne last year.

``I like it that I have my family around, friends come out. My mom's been here the whole time with me, and my husband's gone back and forth.''

Davenport is married to Jon Leach, an investment banker who played college tennis at USC.

Canas, who finished ranked No. 11 in the world last year and won three tour titles, broke Henman's serve in the 12th game to take the match.

Henman made two of his staggering total of 51 unforced errors on the final two points, first hitting a volley wide, then sending a forehand long.

As the ball landed out by several feet, Canas raised both arms in triumph.

The results (quarterfinals): Men: Guillermo Canas bt Tim Henman 7-6 (1), 7-5; Roger Federer bt Nicolas Kiefer 6-4, 6-1.

Women: Lindsay Davenport bt Nathalie Dechy 7-6 (2), 6-0; Maria Sharapova bt Mary Pierce 6-4, 6-3. — Agencies

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport