Davenport Zeroes Out Russian

Andre Agassi had to pull out of the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament with a toe injury Friday at Indian Wells, making his day only the second-worst among the players. Top honors went to Maria Sharapova, who showed up for the women’s semifinals and left 49 minutes later, a 6-0, 6-0 loser.

Giving the tennis lesson was Lindsay Davenport, the current No. 1 player in the world and three months from her 29th birthday, who has hinted as recently as a year ago that she was considering retiring.

Now, after her 18-2 start this year, the rest of the players wish she would.

“I would have never guessed this in a million years,” Davenport said afterward, referring not to the victory, but the margin by which it was achieved. And, indirectly, to the opponent involved.

This sort of tennis double-bagel occurs occasionally in the early rounds, but almost never this late in a tournament of this caliber, almost never against a player who has beaten you in both your previous meetings, and certainly never to the current Wimbledon champion.

The last love-and-love in this women’s event was Davenport’s whipping of Maria Santangelo of Italy last year. But that was in the second round. And the last time Sharapova came even close to this kind of result was in Indian Wells in 2002, when Monica Seles won in the second round, 6-0, 6-2. Sharapova was 14 then.

Davenport, whose high school nickname was Double-Bagel because of her tendency, as a much-stronger player than her opponents, to always give up at least one game so the other girl didn’t feel so bad, undoubtedly got the attention of Kim Clijsters. The Belgian comeback kid, in only her second tournament since suffering a wrist injury at Indian Wells last year that put her out for the rest of the year, made her way into today’s final with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over an overmatched Elena Dementieva.

Clijsters has beaten Davenport eight times in their 14 meetings. She beat her in the final at Indian Wells in 2003 and, Aug. 11 of that year, beat her again in the final at Carson, becoming No. 1 with the victory. Davenport, from Newport Beach, has never beaten Clijsters, from Bree, Belgium, in five matches in California.

Davenport knows the history, especially that summer of ’03.

“She always knew that summer kind of what to do to break me down,” Davenport said. “I’m going to have to be stronger from the beginning and move better than I did a year and a half ago.”

Clijsters said that this may be her happiest march to a final, no small statement from somebody who has made her way to four of them in Grand Slams, while yet to win one.

“I think you only realize how much it means,” she said, “if you haven’t had it for a while.”

For Sharapova, this was her saddest march out of a tournament. She came into the match with a 17-1 record, her only loss a devastating three-setter in the Australian semifinals, when she had three match points against Serena Williams. But Mary Pierce, the veteran and former French Open champion that Sharapova defeated in the quarterfinals, hinted at what was to come Friday against Davenport.

After her loss, Pierce said of Sharapova: “I find her not as confident now. That’s strange because she has only lost one match this year, but she seems a little fragile because of that one match she did lose and had so many match points. She seems to panic a little sooner or just miss a shot.”

At least Sharapova got her serve in most of the time. Dementieva, a great player whose only flaw is a serve that wouldn’t break a living room window and always seems to let her down at big moments, started and ended with double faults and had four more in between.

Asked if she felt it was letting her down, she said, “I don’t think so.”

Asked if she were encouraged that she went, in one span, 39 minutes between double faults, she said, “No.”

Asked if she were bothered by it always being an issue with her, she said, “No.”

Today’s final will begin at noon. The winner will get $332,000, the loser $163,000.

Sharapova, who managed only 23 points in the match, compared to Davenport’s 52, got $80,000 for getting to the semifinals. Factoring in her last match only, that broke down to $3,478.26 per point.