Her Example Could Be a Sister Assister

Is that really Lindsay Davenport? Lindsay, from Palos Verdes? She’s still here?

She must’ve gotten lost on her way to the beach. She should be winding down her career right about now. Instead, she has gone from twilight to guiding light.

She’s showing the WTA tour how it’s done, reclaiming control of women’s tennis from the Williams sisters.

It wasn’t too long ago that she was fending off questions about retirement, her feet hurting so badly she couldn’t even compete. At Wimbledon this year she hinted that it could be her last trip to the All England Club.

Four years ago Davenport had to take her place in line with the rest of the players behind the Williams sisters, then she had to do some serious running to catch up. She lost weight, got in better shape to emulate the mobility and all-court presence of Venus and Serena.

Now the Williams sisters might need to ask Davenport a few questions themselves, perhaps learn some lessons on how to regain top form after injuries and maintain focus when the real world encroaches on those painted white lines.

Davenport holds the answers after beating Serena Williams, 6-1, 6-3, to win the JPMorgan Chase Open on Sunday, one week after defeating Venus Williams in the final at Palo Alto.

Davenport has won more WTA events this season than the Williams sisters combined (4-3).

The solution is in a renewed dedication, a determination to take control of her body instead of letting the various ailments dictate her life. So after a year in which she required knee surgery then foot surgery, Davenport now travels with a trainer and physical therapist.

“It was really disheartening,” Davenport said of her 2003 campaign. “I knew I wasn’t near 100%. I tried to play it off like I was.

“If I did come back I was not going to go through what I went through last year.

“I just started working harder, trying to stay healthy. It’s worked out.”

It’s working so well that she’s the leader in the U.S. Open Series points race and has to be considered on the short list of favorites to win the last Grand Slam event of the year.

You still count on Serena and Venus Williams to be around on Super Saturday, but at the moment that’s an assumption based on reputation rather than results.

Serena has gone four months without a title, her longest stretch in more than five years. Venus hasn’t won a tournament since April, hasn’t made it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event since she lost to Serena in the Wimbledon final last year, and now must worry about a right wrist injury that forced her to retire against Davenport on Saturday afternoon and still required a brace Sunday.

Last year was mostly a washout for Venus because of an abdominal muscle injury. Serena had knee surgery a year ago and missed the latter part of the schedule, including the U.S. Open. She won her first time back in March, but lost to Jennifer Capriati in the French Open quarterfinals and was dismantled by Maria Sharapova in the final at Wimbledon.

She said she feels up to speed physically and the knee isn’t giving her any problems. Then it must be her head, filled with Hollywood thoughts, or still swooning from the ballad Jamie Foxx crooned to her at an ESPN award show.

“I need to get serious,” Williams said. “I need to concentrate.”

Williams played on her heels for much of Sunday’s match. The ball moved faster coming her way than it did when it left her racket. She spent most of her time functioning as a ball machine, teeing it up for Davenport instead of forcing her from side to side.

Davenport’s serve faltered midway through the second set, but Williams couldn’t do anything about it; she failed on all six break points she held in the match.

Williams coughed up 29 unforced errors in only 65 minutes of play.

Davenport wasn’t spectacular, she was just very steady. That was enough on Sunday.

To be No. 1 requires an almost unhealthy level of dedication, to the point of excluding everything else, and Davenport probably doesn’t have that anymore.

She also finds it increasingly difficult to spend time on the road, away from her Southern California base and her husband of 15 months.

But she is showing that she can return to an elite level. Although she didn’t say it, some of her newfound success must come from the realization that, at 28, she won’t be on the tour that much longer so she’d better make it count.

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario retired a month before her 31st birthday. Steffi Graf retired two months after her 30th birthday, in a year in which she won the French Open and was runner-up (to Davenport) at Wimbledon.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Davenport, who won the most recent of her three Grand Slam titles at the 2000 Australian Open. “We’ll see how I feel in November, but I never alluded to the fact that I was going to walk away soon....

“It was never: ‘I’m down about playing tennis right now.’ It’s not a total surprise to me that I’m having fun. Physically and mentally, we’ll see how I’m doing in November.

“Who knows how many more chances I’m going to have?”

Venus Williams is 24, Serena’s 22 and they’ll find themselves facing that same question before they know it.

They’re gearing up for the U.S. Open in the not-so-distant future, while Serena maintains that, “Hopefully I can learn from the past.”

What they can do right now is look at the present state of Lindsay Davenport, who’s evoking memories of her own days atop the tennis world four years ago.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande