Amelie amazes Down Under
Mauresmo overpowers Davenport; Hingis eyes three-peat
Posted: Thursday January 28, 1999 01:36 AM
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Mauresmo: "I'm very happy to be in my first Grand Slam final, and I didn't expect it." AP |
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Lindsay Davenport thought she was playing a man, a player so muscular, so quick, so relentless she was overwhelming.
France's broad-shouldered Amelie Mauresmo emerged as the latest teen sensation to invade women's tennis, reaching the Australian Open final as the top-seeded Davenport yielded to her power and youth in the brutal heat.
Mauresmo, the 19-year-old former junior Wimbledon and French champion, reeled off six of her nine aces in the final set as she wore down the U.S. Open champion Thursday 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.
Mauresmo now goes for the title Saturday against two-time defending champion Martina Hingis.
Hingis, 18, had an answer for everything Monica Seles could muster, ending the 33-match undefeated streak of the four-time champ Down Under, 6-2, 6-4.
"You hate for that to happen," Seles said of the end of her
streak. "I'll have to start a new one. Martina just started off so
well. I was too flat. I was too slow for a lot of balls. I missed
shots I hadn't missed all week."
Seles, who won the Australian in 1991, '92, '93 and '96 but sat
out the past two years, couldn't match the same inspired play she
produced in the semifinals against longtime rival Steffi Graf.
Hingis, who has won 20 matches in a row in the Australian Open,
absorbed Seles' power, anticipated her shots well, and kept her
moving before cracking winners down the sidelines. It was the
seventh time in nine meetings that Hingis has beaten Seles.
"I said to Monica in the locker room, 'I broke your [unbeaten]
record, so I'm almost not allowed to lose here,' " Hingis said.
"I tried to play in the middle so she has no angles. She kept
making errors, so I wasn't too unhappy about that."
Hingis has played Mauresmo a couple of close, tough matches,
winning both times.
"She's strong physically," Hingis said. "She just keeps
fighting. You could see she was always pumped [against Davenport]
even at 5-5 in the third."
The thick, humid heat slowed down the rubberized hard court so that it played more like clay, an advantage for Mauresmo, who beat Davenport on clay in their only other meeting in Germany last year.
"I couldn't touch some of those serves at the end, and that made the difference," said Davenport, who hadn't dropped even a set in a Grand Slam match since the quarterfinals of Wimbledon last year. "Her shoulders looked huge to me, maybe because she was wearing a tank top.
"She's a very, very strong girl. A couple of times I thought I was playing a guy, the girl was hitting it so hard. She's so strong in those shoulders. She hits the ball, y'know, not like any other girl. She hits it so hard and with so much topspin. Women's tennis is not usually played like that."
Mauresmo had plenty of confidence coming into this one-hour, 56-minute match.
"The biggest thing was that I knew I could beat her," said Mauresmo, who shrugged off Davenport's comparisons of her to a man.
"Perhaps the fact that I'm strong physically is maybe impressing her. It means that I'm a very solid player, so I take it as a compliment."
Mauresmo said she works out hard in the gym "to be the one who stays out longer on the court."
Mauresmo pressured the 22-year-old Davenport from the start, making her work hard to fight off five break points before finally holding serve to 1-1 after 10 minutes.
Davenport managed to break Mauresmo a couple of times to take a 5-2 lead, but had trouble putting the set away. Mauresmo broke back to 5-3 with a brilliant, lunging forehand return crosscourt, then held to 5-4.
Davenport settled down for a moment, though, and secured the set at love after 37 minutes with a forehand volley.
The second set went with serve until the 12th game, when Davenport broke down with a double fault that made it love-40. Mauresmo didn't waste that opportunity, jumping on a second serve and drilling it into the corner as Davenport stared at the spot and sagged.
Davenport retreated for a long break after that set, but that rest didn't help. Mauresmo served two aces to start the set.
Davenport briefly asserted herself again, taking a 2-1 lead when she broke Mauresmo, but the French girl broke right back. Davenport registered another break to 3-2, but gave that one up a few games later as Mauresmo made it 4-4, then held to 5-5.
"When I broke back, I knew I had a really good chance to win this one," Mauresmo said. "I just kept my mind clear. I knew what I had to do. I had nothing to lose."
Davenport looked visibly weak by that time, and Mauresmo was fresh as ever. When Davenport opened the 12th game, trying to stay in the match while trailing 6-5, she double faulted on the first point on the only overrule of the match by the umpire.
That call, on an apparent second-serve ace, threw Davenport off, but not as much as Mauresmo's strength. Mauresmo ripped a forehand pass for love-30, and three points later at match point, she drilled a backhand pass that Davenport couldn't touch.
Mauresmo's victory was her third over a seeded player. She beat No. 8 Patty Schnyder in the second round and No. 11 Dominique Van Roost in the quarters.
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