It's The Courts: Davenport In Race To Rebound From Injury

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday January 23, 2006

Linda Pearce With Nabila Ahmed

Lindsay Davenport has blamed the Rebound Ace surface for the first ankle trauma of her long career, but the Australian Open's top seed is less certain how the injury will affect her in tomorrow's all-star quarter-final against Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Davenport rolled her left ankle during Friday's third-round win over Maria Kirilenko and jarred it again while leading 3-0 in the second set of yesterday's straight-sets defeat of 14th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The world No.1 awoke on Saturday to find the joint had swollen dramatically overnight but, after intensive treatment, Davenport played without great discomfort in the early stages of her match against Kuznetsova - until the first point of the 12th game.

"I remember as the rally went on thinking like, 'Oh, God, it's getting worse' ... I double-faulted next point - I knew then. I asked for the trainer at that point.

"It had gone from, you know, hurting but manageable to definitely a lot worse."

Davenport was to have scans late yesterday, the results of which are still to be released, but the WTA Tour last night upgraded her chances of playing to "probable". Barring any structural damage, she planned to "put my foot up for 48 hours and hopefully the swelling goes down and it will be OK".

She also left no doubt where the blame lay. "I mean, it's no question it was the court, but I've played on it many times before and it's never happened. Unfortunately, the other day I was playing when the court was at a ridiculous high temperature. With this surface, the hotter it gets, the stickier it gets."

Davenport was aware she needed to finish the match in two sets, and had her ankle restrapped when ahead 3-2. The American had lost the previous two games and lost the next two in her only sustained stutter of the match, for Kuznetsova was unable to take further advantage of her hobbling opponent in a set that finished 6-4.

Davenport now plays Henin-Hardenne, the reigning French Open champion whose eighth seeding is a reflection of the Belgian's recent injury problems.

Henin-Hardenne's match finished just seconds before Davenport's, her 6-0, 6-3 clouting of Virginia Ruano Pascual representing the 11th straight win at Melbourne Park for the player who was unable to defend her title in 2005.

"I think I've played pretty serious matches, very professional, very aggressive, so I'm very happy the way I finished this week," Henin-Hardenne said. "And Tuesday starts not another tournament, but it's going to be the next step, playing the No.1 player in the world.

Meanwhile, no sooner had Nadia Petrova advanced to her first quarter-final at the Australian Open than she revealed plans to sack her coach.

Having discovered a new mental toughness that she says gives her the confidence to take on anyone, the ambitious Russian declared her coach Alexander Mityaev was not strong enough for her.

"He's a good person and tennis-wise he's not bad. But our characters don't fit. He's a bit soft for me," Petrova said.

It does not, however, seem to have caused too many problems for the 23-year-old at the Open, where her rise to the quarter-finals has been managed with minimum fuss and the loss of only 15 games. She enjoyed a comfortable 6-3, 6-1 victory at the Vodafone Arena yesterday against compatriot Elena Vesnina, propelling her to her fourth grand slam quarter-final in a row.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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