In The Heat Of The Fight, Davenport's Class Wins

The Age

Thursday January 27, 2005

ALAN ATTWOOD

FOR 145 minutes, Alicia Molik had been toiling on a sauna-like court. Twenty minutes earlier, she had saved a match point with an audacious return of serve.

Now she believed she had served an ace to take an 8-7 lead in a marathon final set against top seed Lindsay Davenport. The crowd thought so too. But not the line judge.

The serve was called out. Instead of changing ends, Molik was still fighting to hold serve.

She lost that game. And the next one. Davenport's second match-point came 28 minutes after her first one, but this time she made no mistake.

The American barely moved once victory was clinched. There was no leaping, no arm-waving. She seemed spent. Molik, meanwhile, had enough energy left to jog to the net and embrace her opponent.

Molik won plenty of admirers in her marathon quarter-final yesterday afternoon. She also won points for the courage she showed under extreme pressure. But she could not quite win the match.

So it will be Davenport, the 2000 Open champion, who will play Nathalie Dechy later today for a place in Saturday's women's final. Molik's brave run is over.

In a contest that lasted 36 games and 153 minutes, it seems silly to brood on individual points. So while Molik insisted later that the contentious serve had certainly looked in to her at 7-all, she blamed herself for allowing some frustration to slow her reactions in the next rally.

Besides, calls tend to go both ways. And, as she says: "One point doesn't decide a tennis match."

Davenport probably should have ended the contest considerably earlier. After winning the first set, she then took an early lead in the second, only to surrender the advantage with a sloppy service game.

But this was just a warm-up for her woeful effort when serving at 4-5. The world's top-ranked women's player plonked down consecutive double-faults to lose the set. After 76 minutes the match was all square.

The players took a 10-minute break because of the torrid conditions. But the match resumed where it had been paused: with Molik having the momentum, Davenport serving more double-faults.

Molik had four break-point opportunities, and converted none of them. In the end, these were more costly to her than any one line call. She said it herself: "When you play the top players, until you win the last point of the match, the match is never over."

The last point went to the American. The last Australian woman bowed out on a day when everything had seemed to point to an upset victory.

Just before the start of the deciding set, a helicopter flew overhead trailing a huge Australian flag. An omen? Surely.

Coming up on centre court was a ceremony celebrating the Open's centenary, and honouring past national champions - famous names such as Court, Goolagong, Rosewall and Emerson. The stage was set for Molik.

But, in the end, Davenport showed a bit more class in the crunch. Down a break point in the deciding game, the American successfully followed up a strong serve with a winning volley that John Newcombe, waiting in the wings, would have been proud to call his own.

Later, she was full of praise for Molik, saying: "She's made vast improvements in her game. She's a tough opponent."

As for Molik, now in the top 10 of the women's game, she said: "The bottom line is, I probably had a chance out there to win today . . . I see today as the one that got away. But I'll just keep trying, keep persisting. I can't be too disappointed."

Despite oppressive conditions, neither player described the heat as a major factor. In fact, both went out to play doubles matches later in the afternoon - around the same time that a distressed Nikolay Davydenko felt unable to finish his quarter-final against big-serving American Andy Roddick, who had already won the first two sets.

After signing autographs, Roddick was able to take a cool shower and wait to see who his semi-final opponent would be - Lleyton Hewitt, now the only Australian in singles contention, or David Nalbandian, of Argentina. This would be their first meeting on court since the 2002 Wimbledon final. But last night's encounter would be in different conditions. In January instead of July. And, oh, yes - on Australia Day.

© 2005 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home