A home-court advantage for Davenport

When Lindsay Davenport plays Indian Wells, she might as well be leafing through a scrapbook, both professional and personal.

It was the site of her first tournament as a professional in 1993, and the place where in 2000 she not only won the singles and doubles titles, she had her first dinner date with her future husband, Jonathan Leach.

And it was at the Pacific Life Open last year that Davenport, then seven months pregnant, initially had this fleeting inspiration: Maybe a tennis career could coexist with new motherhood.

Since her son, Jagger, was born in June, she has won four tournaments -- including two this year -- confirming that her two worlds could mesh. Now, at 31, she returns to the desert tournament, which starts today with women’s first-round play at Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

“The last few weeks I’ve worked pretty hard to get it back on the straight and narrow. I think I’m back,” Davenport said, laughing. “To have done as well as I’ve done so far while being back, I would give myself an A. If you’re asking me about this year, it would be a little lower, like a B-minus maybe.”

Two losses knocked down her self-assigned letter grade. One was to eventual champion Maria Sharapova in the second round of the Australian Open in January, hardly a huge demerit considering the way Sharapova dominated every opponent in Melbourne. The more recent loss, to unheralded Sabine Lisicki of Germany at the Fed Cup in La Jolla, stung more.

But Davenport avenged the loss to Lisicki, beating her in the first round on her way to winning the tournament in Memphis this month. It was her 55th career WTA Tour title.

“I’m looking forward to, especially in Indian Wells, playing players that are higher ranked and testing my game,” said Davenport, who is ranked 36th. “I’ve played a lot of tournaments against players outside the top 20. Now I’m like, ‘OK, let’s get some players in the top 20, top 10, and let’s let me play against them.’ ”

That could come in a rare matchup of mothers.

If Davenport and 11th-seeded Sybille Bammer of Austria both win their second-round matches, they would meet in the third. Bammer, who reached the semifinals at Indian Wells last year, is the other top-flight mother on the tour. Her daughter, Tina, now 6, was a charming presence, brightening the usually routine post-match interview sessions.

Maybe Jagger could sit with Tina if their moms play each other. Then again, from the way Davenport was talking, it might be difficult for Jagger to sit still.

“He’s mobile, which makes life a little bit more challenging,” Davenport said. “But he’s crawling, gets across the room faster than we can watch him these days. . . . I like to joke that I flew with him home from Melbourne. It was just he and I for 14 hours. I was fine. And then flying a three-hour flight with my nanny and Jagger in his own seat was way more difficult.”

The top-seeded woman in the field is Australian Open runner-up Ana Ivanovic, followed by Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelena Jankovic, Sharapova and Daniela Hantuchova. Hantuchova, who beat Kuznetsova in the Indian Wells final last year, reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in January, losing to Ivanovic in three sets after holding a 6-0, 2-0 lead.

Men’s first-round play begins Thursday against a backdrop of intriguing story lines:

How will three-time champion and top-seeded Roger Federer respond after rare back-to-back losses? Federer lost to eventual champion Novak Djokovic in an Australian Open semifinal and promptly went out in the first round of his next event, losing to Andy Murray in Dubai.

On top of that, Federer, No. 6 Andy Roddick and No. 11 Murray are all in the same quarter of the draw at Indian Wells. Federer, to be fair, has not been completely healthy, recently telling the International Herald Tribune that he had been suffering from mononucleosis earlier this year.

The chance to see if Roddick’s resurgence is more than a one-week thing. Roddick, days after splitting with coach Jimmy Connors, registered big victories against Rafael Nadal and Djokovic and went on to win the Dubai tournament. Last year’s Indian Wells champion, Nadal, could be facing his Australian Open nemesis, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, at Indian Wells if they both reach the fourth round.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com