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Davenport squeaks through Defending champ finds her game just in time
Posted: Thursday June 29, 2000 10:34 PM
LONDON (Reuters) -- Defending champion Lindsay Davenport came back from 0-3 down in the final set at Wimbledon to squeeze past Russia's Elena Likhovtseva 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round on Thursday. And the world number two knows she must play much better to stand a chance of holding on to her crown. "I just started off that match so poorly," she said. "For some reason I am getting off to really slow starts ... not feeling great at the start of matches. "It's not so much the pressure of defending for me -- it's the pressure of trying to play better than I have been the last couple of weeks. "It's the pressure of trying to get my game to where I think it should be right now, somewhere it definitely is not." Davenport, who has only recently recovered from a back injury, certainly looked a tormented and forlorn figure on Court One as her trademark heavy artillery groundstrokes deserted her. Likhovtseva had not won so much as a set in their previous six meetings but she could hardly put a foot wrong for much of the match, hitting winners at will from the baseline and keeping Davenport guessing on every point. The Russian world number 23 raced into a 4-0 lead in the first set as Davenport looked completely off her game. Davenport did finally hold serve to register a game and immediately broke back. But Likhovtseva broke again three games later for 6-3 to take the opener. The Russian's nerves came to Davenport's rescue in the second set as a handful of unforced errors saw Likhovtseva broken in the first and ninth games for Davenport to level. The second seed's timing was still missing, however, and at times she looked very clumsy and slow. Her serve was the next part of her game to crack and weak, short deliveries were immediately punished by the Russian who broke in the first game of the decider. She broke again in the third game for 3-0 and seemed to be heading for the greatest win of her career. But again nerves took hold and her previously fluid strokes lost their potency. Davenport hit back with a vengeance, seizing her chance and the next six games to secure a shaky victory in one hour 42 minutes. "It's funny, because I thought at 0-3, a few game points, I finally started to hit my shots a little bit better. "It just seemed to me that for the whole match I wasn't using the whole court. "I was just hitting down the middle of the court, not making her run much, not putting a lot of pace on the ball. "But then I started hitting out a little bit more and finding my range." Davenport was knocked out in the first round of the French Open but insisted that the back injury, that sidelined her for about three weeks, was not affecting her. "Physically I have been feeling great," she insisted. "I've just not got a lot of confidence in my shots." Thursday's comeback should do much to boost her confidence, however. "I hope so," she said. "Those last six games... that's what I am going to try and remember through the next two days, just remember how I was hitting the ball at the end. "That's the kind of tennis I need to be playing."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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