Davenport, Williams Sisters Suffer No Energy Shortage

Much like at Southern California Edison, there was very little electricity available on a sleepy Sunday at the Indian Wells tennis event.

Three of the biggest stars on the women’s tour, Lindsay Davenport and sisters Serena and Venus Williams, did what they were expected to do, which was win with some degree of ease in the third round of the Tennis Masters Series event.

Serena played first on the main stadium court and was off quickly, dispatching Gala Leon Garcia of Spain, 6-3, 6-1. Venus followed and took part in some minor drama by losing the second set in a 6-4, 3-6, 6-0 victory over Cara Black of Zimbabwe, and then Davenport struggled a bit with the swirling wind and the flat baseline rockets of left-hander Anne Gaelle Sidot of France before prevailing, 6-4, 6-4.

A half-full house, in a desert Taj Mahal built by Charlie Pasarell to seat 16,071 and named the Indian Wells Garden because the tiny city in which it is built anted up some naming-rights money, lulled in the 75-degree sunshine and casually applauded the proficiency of the stars they had paid to see.

Serena Williams fell behind in her match, 3-1, and then won 11 of the next 12 games. Venus Williams played her last set like she was in a hurry to catch a bus, finishing the match with a 110 mph ace.

And Davenport, the defending champion, shrugged off a potential threat while serving for the match at 5-4 and 15-30. She hit a 100 mph ace to deuce, a 92 mph service winner to match point and an explosive 79 mph kicker down the middle that got up so high so fast on the 5-foot-8 Sidot that her return attempt ticked off the top of her racket and sailed into the stands.

Afterward, the press, finding little of interest in the routine nature of great players beating ordinary ones on the third day of a nine-day women’s draw, searched for new angles and sank to the absurd.

Serena Williams was asked for the second day about the color of her dress--is it red, is it pink or is it Memorex?--and offered that she wasn’t sure whether or not it was a lucky dress. After Saturday’s match, she had described it as “hot pink for a hot girl.”

Venus Williams was enticed into a discussion of being a homemaker, now that she lives away from Mom and Dad with younger sister Serena in their own home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “I don’t wash. I don’t clean. I wasn’t made to do that,” she said. But she does cook, her best dish being lamb chops. “But I don’t eat them,” she said.

Don’t ask.

Davenport’s postmatch session was a bit more orderly, at least until a TV crew from the “Animal Planet” television show pulled her aside afterward. The interviewer asked about her Rottweiler, and Davenport said the dog weighs 125 pounds and, obviously, stays at home when she is on the road playing. To which the interviewer responded, “Is there anything you want to say to him?”

There was the possibility of a kilowatt charge in the fourth match on center court, featuring Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, who in her prime won four Grand Slam event titles--three French and one U.S. Open--but who, at age 29, is no longer in her prime.

Sanchez Vicario, still No. 14 in the world, was going for the 700th victory of her 15-year career, but she was doing it in the late afternoon, when the sun goes behind the mountains, the desert temperature dips with it and the typical early-to-bed, early-to-rise senior tennis fan places a higher priority on dinner reservations.

So, in front of a couple hundred die-hards, Sanchez-Vicario did just that, losing to Nathalie Dechy of France, 7-6 (9), 3-6, 6-2.

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The men’s portion of this Tennis Masters Series event begins today and finishes with the final Sunday. The women’s final is Saturday.

Alex Corretja of Spain won the men’s title last year and is seeded eighth. Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, who finished last year at No. 1, is seeded first. Veterans Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi are seeded third and fourth, respectively, with Russian Marat Safin No. 2. Perhaps the most interesting matchup in the first round will be Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia against Marcelo Rios of Chile, an almost unprecedented early face-off for two players who, within the last two years at separate times, were No. 1 in the world.

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Lisa Dillman, who covers tennis for The Times, was honored at a dinner Sunday night in Indian Wells as the WTA media person of the year.