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She is knocked out by Australia's Stosur in Carson and could drop out of the top 10.
What was to be Lindsay Davenport's triumphant return to the tennis tour at the JPMorgan Chase Open on Wednesday turned out to be mostly hollow notes.
The 30-year-old veteran from Laguna Beach, who has won this event four times but who has been out since March because of a bulging disk in her back, lasted 2 hours and 4 minutes before losing to 37th-ranked Samantha Stosur of Australia, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-3.
A gathering of perhaps 500, swelling to maybe 550 by the end of the match, watched in the heat of the midafternoon at the Home Depot Center.
That result was bad news for the local promoters, who lost a big name for weekend ticket sales, and bad news for Davenport, who has less than three weeks to fix whatever needs fixing before the U.S. Open.
But it was also a potential bad news milestone for U.S. tennis, and indirectly, for the sanctioning body whose mission it is to develop great players in this country. USTA officials can wake up this morning knowing that, if Russia's Anastasia Myskina wins the event this week in Stockholm, she will displace Davenport at No. 10. That would mean that, for the first time in the 31-year history of the rankings, the U.S. would not have a player in the WTA's top 10.
Davenport beat Stosur in a first-set tiebreaker but then had her serve broken in the fifth game of the second set and never could recover. Davenport double-faulted on match point, one of 10 double faults she had in the match, and said that she started to feel, about midway through the match on a day where the temperature reached more than 100 on the court, that she had tried to come back too soon. The last match she played had been a fourth-round loss to Martina Hingis at Indian Wells.
"I felt like I had no reactions, no first step," she said. "My back was fine, but I guess the three weeks' preparation I had wasn't quite enough time."
Stosur, who has never won a WTA singles event and has made most of her money on the tour in doubles, said she noticed Davenport's body language becoming negative about the time she broke her serve in the second set.
"But half the time, when you see that with her," Stosur said, "it doesn't make a scrap of difference. She'll just come back to win anyway."
For Davenport, this was her earliest tournament departure in a match she completed since March 2003, when she lost to Ai Sugiyama in the second round at Scottsdale, Ariz. Clearly unhappy but still upbeat about getting herself more fit and ready for the U.S. Open, Davenport said, "I could count on one hand the number of good points I played today."
Another American star also trying to get back to the top, Serena Williams, fared better.
Williams, out because of injuries for all but two tournaments entering this event and ranked 110th, defeated Ashley Harkleroad, 6-3, 6-2, and said that, although the score made the match look easy, she was not as strong as in her first-round win Tuesday.
"I was just all right," Williams said. "I was a little slower than yesterday. Both of us were kind of up and down. It was weird."
Williams said, however, that she is starting to feel strong for a push toward the U.S. Open, where she has claimed two of her seven Grand Slam event titles.
"I'm a better player now than I was in Australia," she said.
She came into that major tournament as the defending champion and was upset in the third round.
"I am more ready to play," she said. "I am in a better place."
In the evening featured match, top-seeded Maria Sharapova, looking for her second straight title after last week's win over Kim Clijsters in the Acura Classic final, waltzed past fellow Russian Anastassia Rodionova, 6-3, 6-1. Sharapova got her first serve in 71% of the time, hit 22 winners and made only 14 unforced errors. She came to the net the same number of times as her opponent. Zero.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-tennis10aug10,1,5753781,print.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-sports
What was to be Lindsay Davenport's triumphant return to the tennis tour at the JPMorgan Chase Open on Wednesday turned out to be mostly hollow notes.
The 30-year-old veteran from Laguna Beach, who has won this event four times but who has been out since March because of a bulging disk in her back, lasted 2 hours and 4 minutes before losing to 37th-ranked Samantha Stosur of Australia, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-3.
A gathering of perhaps 500, swelling to maybe 550 by the end of the match, watched in the heat of the midafternoon at the Home Depot Center.
That result was bad news for the local promoters, who lost a big name for weekend ticket sales, and bad news for Davenport, who has less than three weeks to fix whatever needs fixing before the U.S. Open.
But it was also a potential bad news milestone for U.S. tennis, and indirectly, for the sanctioning body whose mission it is to develop great players in this country. USTA officials can wake up this morning knowing that, if Russia's Anastasia Myskina wins the event this week in Stockholm, she will displace Davenport at No. 10. That would mean that, for the first time in the 31-year history of the rankings, the U.S. would not have a player in the WTA's top 10.
Davenport beat Stosur in a first-set tiebreaker but then had her serve broken in the fifth game of the second set and never could recover. Davenport double-faulted on match point, one of 10 double faults she had in the match, and said that she started to feel, about midway through the match on a day where the temperature reached more than 100 on the court, that she had tried to come back too soon. The last match she played had been a fourth-round loss to Martina Hingis at Indian Wells.
"I felt like I had no reactions, no first step," she said. "My back was fine, but I guess the three weeks' preparation I had wasn't quite enough time."
Stosur, who has never won a WTA singles event and has made most of her money on the tour in doubles, said she noticed Davenport's body language becoming negative about the time she broke her serve in the second set.
"But half the time, when you see that with her," Stosur said, "it doesn't make a scrap of difference. She'll just come back to win anyway."
For Davenport, this was her earliest tournament departure in a match she completed since March 2003, when she lost to Ai Sugiyama in the second round at Scottsdale, Ariz. Clearly unhappy but still upbeat about getting herself more fit and ready for the U.S. Open, Davenport said, "I could count on one hand the number of good points I played today."
Another American star also trying to get back to the top, Serena Williams, fared better.
Williams, out because of injuries for all but two tournaments entering this event and ranked 110th, defeated Ashley Harkleroad, 6-3, 6-2, and said that, although the score made the match look easy, she was not as strong as in her first-round win Tuesday.
"I was just all right," Williams said. "I was a little slower than yesterday. Both of us were kind of up and down. It was weird."
Williams said, however, that she is starting to feel strong for a push toward the U.S. Open, where she has claimed two of her seven Grand Slam event titles.
"I'm a better player now than I was in Australia," she said.
She came into that major tournament as the defending champion and was upset in the third round.
"I am more ready to play," she said. "I am in a better place."
In the evening featured match, top-seeded Maria Sharapova, looking for her second straight title after last week's win over Kim Clijsters in the Acura Classic final, waltzed past fellow Russian Anastassia Rodionova, 6-3, 6-1. Sharapova got her first serve in 71% of the time, hit 22 winners and made only 14 unforced errors. She came to the net the same number of times as her opponent. Zero.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-tennis10aug10,1,5753781,print.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-sports