Top Women’s Field Prepares for La Costa

The outdoor hard-court season started the same way the grass-court campaign ended.

With Lindsay Davenport winning another tournament.

Davenport, of Newport Beach, won Wimbledon on July 4 and regained the No. 1 ranking from Martina Hingis of Switzerland. Four weeks later, she took the first significant hard-court event of the summer, defeating Venus Williams at Stanford on Sunday.

Last summer, Davenport took a great leap forward by winning three consecutive weeks--at Stanford, La Costa and Manhattan Beach. Those three tournaments served as the foundation of her first Grand Slam title, the U.S. Open, in September. Davenport knew it would be difficult to defend these three titles, let alone four, if you include the Open.

“Last summer was just an amazing run,” she said. “It’s obviously going to be near impossible to duplicate that. I’m going to try to do my best. Obviously, hard court is my favorite surface. Playing in California is something I love to do. I’ve always seemed to kind of rise to the occasion. Hopefully this summer won’t be any different.”

Stanford was the first successful defense. Davenport’s second test will be at the TIG Tennis Classic at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. The event, featuring eight of the top 10 players on the tour, starts today and the final is Sunday.

Her dominance is one of a handful of intriguing story lines on the women’s tour. This will be the first tournament since Wimbledon for finalist Steffi Graf of Germany and Hingis, who lost in the first round.

After losing to Davenport, the 30-year-old Graf revealed that it would be her final Wimbledon, and later hinted strongly that this was her final year, at least for major events. So, quite possibly, La Costa could be Graf’s final local appearance.

Hingis, meanwhile, has been going through personal and professional turmoil since her controversial loss to Graf in the French Open final. She split with her mother and coach, Melanie Molitor, and played at Wimbledon alone. The experiment backfired and Hingis lost, 6-2, 6-0, in the first round to qualifier Jelena Dokic of Australia.

By the second week of Wimbledon, Hingis was photographed by the tabloids vacationing in Cyprus with her boyfriend Ivo Heuberger, a Swiss player.

Davenport, Hingis, Graf and Venus Williams all have first-round byes. In the second round, Davenport plays Irina Spirlea of Romania or Sylvia Plischke of Austria. Hingis could face wild-card entry Julie Halard-Decugis of France or Chanda Rubin in the second round. Rubin defeated Hingis earlier this year at Indian Wells, Calif.

Halard-Decugis was given the wild-card slot when Mary Joe Fernandez withdrew Sunday because of a strained right wrist.