Graf Shows Davenport Something in Reserve

One of the immutable truths on the WTA Tour is that “good” usually doesn’t cut it where Steffi Graf is concerned. To beat the world No. 1, it is necessary to be great and--as Lindsay Davenport was ruefully reminded Thursday night--it is imperative to capitalize on each rare advantage offered.

It is a measure of how far Davenport has come in her career that she would manage to work herself up to 5-2 and serving for a set against Graf. It says everything about Graf that she fought off a determined Davenport and won, 6-4, 7-6 (13-11) and advanced to the semifinals of the Chase Championships, the season-ending event on the women’s tour.

In another quarterfinal at Madison Square Garden, Iva Majoli upset No. 4 Conchita Martinez, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-4). It was an unusual match: Martinez was warned for racket abuse then assessed a point penalty for a visible obscenity, Majoli was treated in the second set for an injury to a rib. Martinez received on-court treatment for a sore hamstring.

Everyone is limping around here. Second-seeded Monica Seles defaulted with a shoulder injury. Graf defaulted out of a tournament last week because of a flare-up of an existing back injury.

It was not physical superiority that propelled Graf but her unparalleled mental fitness. Davenport played well enough to beat most others--she had a 4-1 lead in the tiebreaker that would have cracked most minds. Davenport, not Graf, succumbed to the pressure of a wild tiebreaker, believed to be the longest of each player’s career.

Davenport looked nothing like the player who upset Graf at the tournament at Manhattan Beach in August, nor, for that matter the player who sliced through an elite field to win the Olympic gold medal. She failed to do what great players must always do--play well when it matters most.

“Today, every big point I played terrible, to be honest,” she said, with her usual critical self-analysis. “She played very well. She hit three winners in a row in the breaker. But every other big point to then I made an error before anything could happen. So it’s my fault and I have just to learn how to play those points a lot better, like she did.”

Davenport said she wasn’t nervous and her play in the early going bore that out. Looking loose and confident in front of 10,908, Davenport broke Graf’s serve to open the match and aced Graf on game point to go up, 2-0. If Davenport wasn’t jittery, Graf was.

“I was nervous,” she said. “Maybe I needed to be trailing to be able to come back and focus well. “

That came in the fourth game, when she extended Davenport to deuce nine times. Davenport held but Graf gained: Davenport’s vulnerable serve was revealed over the long game and Graf’s tenacious play announced, belatedly, that she was prepared to fight hard in defense of her title.

As if to underscore that point, Graf broke Davenport’s serve for the remainder of the first set.

The second set appeared to be going Davenport’s way. She clung to her insistence on hitting out on every shot and it finally paid off. Shots that had flown wide in the first set were skidding off the lines. She matched Graf forehand-to-forehand and frequently won. Graf needed all of her quickness to get to shots that Davenport was able to place in far corners.

Graf paid Davenport the ultimate compliment: she compared Davenport to herself.

“She’s a dangerous player,” Graf said. “She plays like me--pretty aggressive, pretty flat, long. She puts you on the defense right in the beginning. You don’t have that many players who can do that to you.”

As Davenport learned, there aren’t many players like Graf.

Tennis Notes

A new ranking system based on the accumulation of points over 52 weeks was unanimously approved by the Corel WTA Tour board of directors. “The new system will get the top players to play each other more often and build rivalries,” said Anne Person Worcester, the Tour’s chief executive officer. “It also will allow for more movement in the rankings.” The new system will become effective the week of Dec. 23 and replaces a system that has been in use since 1983.