The Globe and Mail
Sept 6 2004
Classic match-up is set
Venus Williams meets Lindsay Davenport, while Agassi-Federer showdown
looms
By TOM TEBBUTT
NEW YORK — Week two of the U.S. Open begins today with the classic
match-up of Venus Williams against Lindsay Davenport and the strong
possibility of an Andre Agassi-Roger Federer blockbuster looming for
Wednesday night.
After their wins on Saturday, Williams and Davenport will play this
afternoon for the 25th time. Their career head-to-head competition is
deadlocked at 12-12. Williams returned to action at the Australian
Open in January after six months out with an abdominal strain.
Then she suffered a bad ankle sprain before the French Open and a
wrist problem this summer.
“I’m just now starting to get healthy,” she said on Saturday after
beating Chanda Rubin. Ranked No. 12, Williams, 24, resents that
injuries have made her vulnerable and implied that she had no choice
but to play the Athens Olympics, where she lost to Mary Pierce.
“It’s a terrible thing,” she said of her current status. “I mean, I’m
a former No. 1, Grand Slam champion. I’m Venus Williams. People come
out and start to think that they can win because I’m not on top. If
I’m playing well, normally I’m going to be in the winner’s circle.”
Davenport, 28, has had her injuries woes as well — right knee
surgery in 2002, toe surgery last October and continuing knee
cartilage degeneration — but is on a roll. She has won four
tournaments and 22 matches in a row as she winds down a career that
could be in its final few months.
“There’s not a lot of pressure,” she said of today’s showdown. “Maybe
that’s because I feel I played so well all summer. I just have a
belief in myself.”
That showed on Saturday when she coolly saved two set points in the
tiebreaker of a tense 7-6 (9-7), 6-2 win over red-hot Elena Bovina of
Russia.
The women’s event lost Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova on Saturday
when her shortcomings on hard courts were exposed in a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3
loss to Pierce.
The 17-year-old Russian does not get the rewards for her power play
on hard courts that she does on grass and does not make any
adjustment to compensate.
Her loss removed a possible quarter-final match-up with top seed
Justine Henin-Hardenne, but the highly anticipated Jennifer
Capriati-Serena Williams quarter-final did materialize yesterday when
Capriati defeated Ai Sugiyama 7-5, 6-2 and Williams downed Patty
Schnyder 6-4, 6-2.
It will be their third consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final —
Capriati winning at Roland Garros and Williams at Wimbledon.
Last night No. 2 seed Amélie Mauresmo defeated Italian Francesca
Schiavone 6-4, 6-2 and will next meet Elena Dementieva.
In men’s action, Andy Roddick showed form worthy of a defending
champion, hitting 21 aces and no double faults in the 6-1, 6-3, 6-3
dismantling of Guillermo Canas of Argentina and Lleyton Hewitt ousted
Feliciano Lopez 6-1, 6-4, 6-2.
Tommy Haas, after missing 15 months after two operations on his right
shoulder, continued an impressive 2004 campaign by beating Ricardo
Mello of Brazil 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.
As a result of their victories on Saturday, Federer and Agassi are
destined for a quarter-final confrontation.
Today, Federer will take on Andrei Pavel, whom he has defeated seven
times in a row (four in 2004), while Agassi will plays his pal Sargis
Sargsian, with whom he shares Armenian ancestry.
He is 5-0 against Sargsian.
In doubles yesterday, No. 3 seeds Daniel Nestor of Toronto and Mark
Knowles of the Bahamas reached the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-1 win
over Americans Justin Gimelstob and Graydon Oliver.
“It’s always important in a match like that with a rowdy crowd
[Gimelstob is from nearby New Jersey] to get off to a good start,”
Nestor said.
That was on the Grandstand.
Later, in the Arthur Ashe Stadium, supermodel Naomi Campbell watched
Serena Williams, who wore a relatively modest black, silver-studded
dress. Campbell told a CBS interviewer that she liked the Williams
sisters’ fashion sense, proclaiming them “bold and interesting. I
love their looks.”
“She’s a really good friend of myself and my sisters,” Serena said.
On a more serious matter, Williams revealed that three doctors had
recommended she not play the U.S. Open because of the problem with
her left knee.
Explaining her participation, she said jokingly: “I became a doctor
just recently. I took my own doctor’s advice.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress