From Cries Of Pain To A Serenade
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 30, 2005
SERENA Williams and Lindsay Davenport staggered, rather than romped, into yesterday's Australian Open final. Their battered bodies had been pushed and pulled from pillar to post over a fortnight as they wearily fended off younger and seemingly hungrier women and girls.
Watching Williams wincing in pain as she hit up on Friday on the Melbourne Park practice courts was to see a champion widely considered to be on the slide in a broader sense, but also struggling at times to swing a racquet. This match was always likely to be won by the last woman standing. But 17 minutes in, as Williams disappeared from the court, few would have predicted that the gaffer tape holding her together would prove stronger than Davenport's. After the final point of the first game, Williams clutched her side, grimaced, and dragged her feet as she moved to the other side of the net. She later said she had "tweaked" her back. Davenport scented blood, targeting the 2003 champion's backhand, making her stretch across her body for balls and breaking her in the first and third games. The potent Williams serve, at its best 22 km/h faster than Davenport's, went missing, with Williams landing a paltry 43 per cent of first serves in the opening set. When she served a 157 km/h ace in the third game, the ripple of reaction in the crowd was as much in response to the popgun nature of the serve as to its effect on the scoreboard.Davenport may be one of the game's fairer competitors, but she was ruthlessly exploiting Williams' anguish, pinpointing the corners as she inserted, then twisted, the stiletto. By the time Williams called for an injury break at 1-4, she was moaning like a wounded animal on almost every point. The trainer manipulated her torso courtside, then Williams left the arena for treatment, leaving a seated Davenport staring into space for 10 minutes. There was a palpable fear that Williams would return only to announce her withdrawal, but these sisters have never been noted for averting their gaze in the face of adversity. When Williams did reappear, the Davenport bombardment continued, the world No. 1 closing out the first set in 35 minutes.Both players held serve in the opening four games of the second set - an achievement for Williams given the nature of the match to that point. In the fifth game, however, the balance tilted. Williams was vague afterwards, saying that the trainer had done "something" to her back, but she appeared to have undergone a full torso transplant. In a marathon 12-minute exchange of 21 points, Davenport allowed six break points to slip by. And ominously for the 2000 champion, the last of them was snuffed out with a 180 km/h Williams ace.The signs were appearing, but the finalists later concurred that it was in the eighth game of the second set that Davenport's quest to become, at 28, the oldest Australian Open champion since Martina Navratilova in 1985 went horribly pear-shaped.At 3-4 and 40-0, she seemed to be motoring along nicely, but with two double faults, two attempted winners struck wide and a crashing Williams return at her feet, the meltdown had begun.Williams was no longer the punch-drunk fighter, and the moans of pain had become grunts accompanying a particularly damaging right hook. She closed the set out 6-3 with a love game, capped symbolically with an ace. The final set was a 6-0 whitewash, at 20 minutes only eight minutes longer than the fifth game of the previous set. Williams won 75 per cent of points on her first serve, compared to Davenport's 33 per cent, and every point on her second, as opposed to a paltry two.At 30-0 in the final game, Williams applauded after Davenport dug deep to win a desperate rally, but the champion-elect could afford to be magnanimous.When Davenport hit long on the final point, Williams sank briefly to her knees before sharing a warm embrace with her opponent. Her celebrations were muted, but she had shown the tennis world she is still a force to be reckoned with.As she said afterwards, when asked if she had considered throwing in the towel in the first set: "I never, ever think that I have to give up."THE FINAL IN STATISTICS Serena Williams (US) Lindsay Davenport (US) 1st serve percentage 60% 63% Aces 12 7 Double faults 5 8 Winning % on 1st serve 38 of 50 - 76% 30 of 43 - 70% Winning % on 2nd serve 16 of 34 - 47% 8 of 25 - 32% Winners (including service) 31 24 Unforced errors 21 25 Break point conversions 4 of 8 - 50% 2 of 8 - 25% Net approaches 4 of 8 - 50% 7 of 10 - 70% Total points won 84 68 Match duration - 89 minutes
© 2005 The Sunday Age
