I had the honour to watch Lindsay
Davenport live twice and especially as she beat Amanda
Coetzer at the WTA-Championships 2001 I was deeply
impressed. Not because of the win, or how she had won.
The impressing thing was what happened after the match:
Because Lindsay won in something like 50 minutes, and
there has been nearly an hour break to the next match,
she re-entered the court 10 minutes after her win, to
have a training session with her coach! In front of
13.000 spectators! Some guy next to me mentioned: "Well,
i guess she payed the court for a whole hour, and now
she want to use the full time...... :-)
27 year old Lindsay Davenport is surely one of the most
outstanding players of the WTA. The girl from California
has won so many tournaments (38) and has reached so many
successes, its just impossible to write about all of
them.
Lindsay, who started playing tennis at the age of 7, has
won the US-Open in 98, Wimbledon in 99 and the
Australian Open in 2000. She has won the Olympic Gold
Medal in 1996 and won the WTA-Championships in 99 in
singles and 96, 97 and 98 in doubles.
All that happened before the year 2001, and Lindsay was
even able to top that successes! 2001 should become the
most successful year for the righthanded player.
In that year, she won amazing 7 Wta-titles, got awarded
the WTA-player of the month in Oktober and November, had
an overall record of 62 matches won and only 9 losses
and reached the WTA-Championship final, where she had to
withdraw because of injury.
And guess what? Lindsay did even top that success! She
did what no player did before her in the history of
tennis! The most amazing success a player can ever
reach. A success which is more worth as winning the
Grand Slam and the Olympic Gold Medal in one Year!
She beat Jelena Dokic 5 times in a row! She beat her at
the Australian Open 4-6, 6-4 and 6-3, and did not allow
the hottest player on the tour to win a single set at
Wimbledon, Zürich, Linz and Munich! By far the greatest
success in her career and every player could ever
possibly reach!
All together Lindsay leads the series vs. Jelena 7-0,
which should make her to the clear favourite today, but
remember that Jelena was down in the series to Martinez
5-0 and drew to 5-5. And it was exactly Martinez who was
responsible for Linsays worst Grand Slam result for ages
this year at Roland Garros, as she beat her in the
fourth round.
Why should this give hope to Jelena, you might ask
yourself now. Well, I dont know, but its good to have at
least some hope, if Jelena has to play the most
outstanding active player of the WTA, isnt it? :-)