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Davenport dominates Spirlea

Coetzer, Venus Williams advance at TIG Classic

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Posted: Thursday August 05, 1999 01:17 AM

Davenport has won 17 of 18 matches in California, including four singles titles. AP

CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) -- Lindsay Davenport continued her home-state roll Wednesday, defeating Irina Spirlea 6-0, 6-2 in the second round of the TIG Classic.

Davenport, the world's No. 1 player, has won 17 of 18 matches in California, including four singles titles. The Newport Beach resident won last week's Bank of the West Classic at Stanford for the second straight year.

She raced through the first set in 17 minutes against the Romanian, a former top 10 player.

"You love playing like that," Davenport said. "You've got to really enjoy it when you play well because it might not happen that often, so I love it."

Davenport's only loss in California in the past year was a second-round defeat to Serena Williams at Indian Wells in March.

"That was awful," she said. "I played terrible, I was so out of shape, not ready to play. That's the way it goes sometimes. Over the last two or three years, my record's been pretty great in California."

In other matches, No. 7 Amanda Coetzer defeated Anna Kournikova 6-0, 1-6, 6-1 and Dominique Van Roost of Belgium beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-2, 6-4.

No. 4 Venus Williams defeated Natasha Zvereva 7-5, 6-1 in the night match. The first set took an hour with the 11th game going to deuce seven times.

"I had to play better. I couldn't continue to play at that level," Williams said. "I have to think about playing well for the rest of the week."

Davenport broke Spirlea's serve three times in the second set and won the 50-minute match when Spirlea's crosscourt forehand went wide.

"She had the best forehand on the tour when she was playing well, and she's probably lost a lot of confidence on that and may be scared to hit it at times," Davenport said.

Kournikova, a crowd favorite at the La Costa Resort, played more aggressively in the second set with frequent trips to the net against Coetzer, but lost her momentum in the third set.

"It really was a strange score," Coetzer said. "It wasn't as easy as it looked."

The 18-year-old Russian was sent off the court with a shout of "We still love you, Anna," by several shirtless male fans standing at the top of the stadium.

Kournikova has yet to win a title in four years on the WTA Tour.

"She wants it so bad and she tries so hard. Sometimes that can hurt you more than it can help you," Davenport said.

Williams, who lost to Davenport in straight sets last week at Stanford, committed a raft of unforced errors throughout the match. But after tying the second set 1-1, Zvereva won just four points the rest of the way.

Williams broke Zvereva at love in the sixth game and then served a 40-love game to close out the match. Zvereva committed three straight errors in the final game.

"I thought she hit the ball well, but I knew I had to raise my game," Williams said.

 

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