Davenport’s Victory Is All in the Wrist

Six times in Manhattan Beach and the last two years in Carson, Lindsay Davenport has reached the final in her hometown WTA Tour event.

But never before had she walked the route she took Saturday.

In the semifinals of the JPMorgan Chase Open at the Home Depot Center, Davenport lost the first five games against Venus Williams, then won nine in a row and advanced when Williams retired because of a wrist injury.

Her 7-5, 2-0 victory was her second in six days over Williams, squaring their all-time series at 12-12, but Davenport wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Obviously, I’m happy to be in the final,” said the third-seeded Davenport, whose opponent in today’s 1 p.m. championship match will be top-seeded Serena Williams, a 6-3, 7-6 (2) winner Saturday night over fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia. “But obviously I know that the playing conditions weren’t level today and I can’t really take tons of confidence in that....

“I’m pretty realistic about what happened.”

What happened, Williams said, was that she injured her right wrist while lifting herself off the ground after tying her shoes about two hours before the match.

With the wrist taped, as it had been all week, she seemed intent on avenging a 7-6 (4), 5-7, 7-6 (4) loss to Davenport in last Sunday’s final at Palo Alto, Davenport’s first victory over either of the Williams sisters since 2000.

Service breaks in the second and fourth games helped Williams to a 5-0 lead, and she ended the fifth game with consecutive service aces.

Davenport, though, said she felt strangely confident.

“That was pretty surprising that at love-5 I was actually thinking I still had a chance, which is pretty rare,” she said. “But it’s important, obviously, to hang in there. I did not know at that point that she was hurt and ... I was just trying to get some momentum for the second set.

“I had no idea it would carry over to so many games in a row.”

But Williams was in pain.

“The tape was helping,” she said afterward, her wrist wrapped in a bandage. “But I was obviously hitting a lot of forehands out there and hitting them quite well, but it was just tough to hit them over and over again and I started to have a hard time consistently putting the spin on them and hitting them the right way.

“It just got tougher and tougher. She played some good points, but I think it was more or less that I couldn’t play anymore.”

She got “kind of tentative,” she said, “a little bit paranoid.”

A short time later, Davenport sensed something was amiss.

“I was just trying so hard to just get better and ... feel better about my own game,” said Davenport, who grew up on the Palos Verdes peninsula and has won this tournament three times, most recently in 2001. “I wasn’t really thinking about her game, and then she called the trainer at 5-3....

“From about 4-5 on, it was pretty obvious she probably was not going to finish the match or be able to compete at a high level.”

Williams, the pace on her shots having declined noticeably in the previous few games, pulled the plug 66 minutes into the match. She apologized to Davenport during a brief on-court exchange, then had her wrist examined in the locker room by tour physician Asghar Husain, who called the injury a sprain.

It was the latest in a string of injuries that has stalled Williams’ career momentum, her ranking dropping to No. 13 because of inactivity with the Olympics (she’s the defending champion) and U.S. Open quickly approaching.

“It can be bad timing sometimes,” said Williams, who was to have her wrist reevaluated Monday but was confident she’d be able to play in the Acura Classic starting today at Carlsbad. “This happens to every athlete, every player on the tour. You do something and you get it calmed down in 24 hours with ice.

“But it was just something that came up two hours before the match and there was not a lot I could do about it.”

In the evening, her sister moved painlessly into the final, overpowering a game but overmatched Dementieva in front of 7,963.

Dementieva gift-wrapped a service break in the third game of the first set, serving up four consecutive double faults, and crumbled in the second-set tiebreaker.

Williams, unbeaten in three matches against Dementieva, has won nine of 10 against Davenport since losing their initial meeting in 1997. She has won four in a row since the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open four years ago.

And she has won this tournament twice, most recently in 2000, when she defeated Davenport in a third-set tiebreaker in the championship match.

“That’s all in the past,” said Williams, who had 36 winners against Dementieva, twice as many as her opponent. “This is a new match. Lindsay, I think, has a lot of confidence right now.

“She just won one tournament and she’s playing really well, so I can’t look at my past record with her. I’ve got to kind of focus on the now.”

*

Today’s Match

* JPMorgan Chase Open final at Home Depot Center in Carson

* Lindsay Davenport vs. Serena Williams, 1 p.m., ESPN2

COMING NEXT

* What: The Acura Classic

* When: Today-Aug. 1

* Where: La Costa Resort and Spa, Carlsbad

* Surface: Hard Court/Outdoors