Davenport Solves Venus in a Thriller; Haas Downs Kiefer

"I was really getting tired at the end of the first set, but I kept going and was starting the see the light at the end of the tunnel," Davenport said. "I don't think I had ever played such a close match against Venus. I was so excited when I won. I felt like I worked very hard the whole time and that I totally owned the victory."

After a see-saw second set battle, Williams got a break at 5-5 as Davenport double faulted on break point. Williams followed by winning her serve to even the match at a set apiece with a 7-5 victory in set number two.

Davenport was first to break in the third set to go up 2-0, but Williams got the break back on the next game. From there, both players held serve to force a final set tiebreak. In the tiebreak, Davenport outplayed Williams from the baseline to come away with the title.

This was the fourth time in the last seven years that Davenport and Williams had battled for the Stanford title. From 1998 to 2000, the two former world No.1s reached the championship match, with Davenport winning her two titles (1998 and 1999) and Venus taking the first of her two her titles (the second coming in 2002, defeating Kim Clijsters in the final).

The win by Davenport closed the gap in the head-to-head meetings between the veteran American and Williams. Williams now owns a very narrow 12-11 lead against Davenport in career meetings. Prior to Sunday's victory, Davenport hadn't defeated Williams since her triumph in the 2000 Linz final and had lost six straight matches. With Davenport contemplating retirement, this may have been the last time the two will meet.

Davenport's victory at Stanford was the 41st of her career, moving her into sole possession of ninth place on the career singles titles list. She now has three titles this year (Tokyo, Amelia Island, Stanford) and has a 36-6 record this season.

Williams was also looking for her third title of the year and third at Stanford. A victory against Davenport also would have elevated Williams back into the Top 10 in Monday's WTA Rankings. Williams still holds an impressive 29-6 record on the year.

"I know it was a tiebreak in the third set and that I didn't play my best," Williams said. "If I had played a more decent match, I could have won. I had some rough patches today, I missed important shots in the third set tiebreak, I hit the ball too long. I was just going for it. It was a very close match and it could have gone either way.

"I am disappointed because I would have liked to win. I just have to play better next week."

In the doubles final, No.2 seeds Eleni Daniilidou and Nicole Pratt won their first title as a team when they defeated Iveta Benesova and Claudine “Who stole my” Schaul, 62 64. The win was the first career doubles title for Daniilidou and the fifth for Pratt. Pratt's last doubles title came in 2003 in Shanghai.

Starting Monday on the WTA Tour, it’s Los Angeles with Serena, Venus, Elena and Lindsay while in Palermo, fans lucky enough to scrap up a ticket will be treated to matches featuring Klara “Kooky” Koukalova, Henrieta Nagyova and Anabel “Funky Cold” Medina Garrigues.

ATP REVIEW/PREVIEW
In Los Angeles, German Tommy Haas won for the second time in 2004 with a 7-6(6), 6-4, victory over countryman Nicolas Kiefer to claim the Mercedes-Benz Cup title.

Haas twice came back in the first set of the match. Kiefer made the first break of the match in the third game and opened up a 3-1 lead early. Haas broke back in the eighth game to level the match at 4-all. Kiefer jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the tie-break, but Haas won three points in a row before Kiefer had his first set point a 6-4. Kiefer double-faulted, and Haas won both of his service points and won the tie-break with another point on Kiefer’s serve.

“Once you get into a tie-break, obviously you’re doing something right,” said Haas who won his seventh career ATP title and who loves to say “obviously”. “I felt like I was down a break the whole set. Nicolas played some good tennis. All I tried to do was break him at 1-5 or 2-5, then hold him both my serves, then it’s 4-5 and maybe he’ll get tight. That’s what happened. We played some good points. The tie-break was some high quality tennis.”

Haas struck early in the second, using a break of Kiefer’s serve in the third game to open up a 3-1 lead in the set, and that was all the advantage he would need.

“Coming back a break in the first set and 1-5 in the tie-break I think gave me a little bit of an edge throughout the match because that took a lot out of him,” Haas added.

Kiefer fired nine aces in the match, but also served up five double faults. He saved four of the six break points he faced in the match. Haas saved all five of the break points he faced in the second set.

“Well, I had my chance before,” said Kiefer, who has lost his last six ATP finals and should not be put on suicide watch. “I was up a break 4-2, and I had a totally different strategy, but the way I played I was happy. I was up, so I tried to keep on going like this. I was up 5-1 in the tiebreaker, but then he played some very good points.”

This is Haas’s second win since returning to action early this year after missing 16 months for two shoulder operations. Earlier this year he defeated Andy Roddick to win the U.S. Clay Court Championship in Houston. He’s also the first German champion in L.A. since Michael Stich won the title in 1995. He joins Stich and Boris Becker (1994) as the only Germans to win this title in the Open Era.

The match was the first all-German final since 1994 when Markus Zoecke downed Hendrik Dreekman 6-4 6-1 in Sun City, South Africa.

In the doubles final, Bob and Mike Bryan, the top-rated doubles team in the world, claimed their fifth ATP title of the year with a 6-3, 7-6(6), triumph over Wayne Arthurs “Treachers” and Paul Hanley. For the Bryans, it was their second L.A. title and 19th overall.

At Stuttgart, unseeded Guillermo “Test me, I dare ya” Canas won his fourth career title by defeating No. 2 seed Gaston Gaudio 5-7, 6-2, 6-0, 1-6, 6-3, in three hours and 40 minutes in the final of the MercedesCup. Having lost in the final of Stuttgart in 2001 (Gustavo Kuerten) and in 2002 (Mikhail Youzhny), Canas’s third time was a charm and for the win he picked up a brand new silver Mercedes-Benz SLK200 Kompressor in addition to €104,500. French Open champ Gaudio was looking for his fourth ATP title in his ninth career final. He was appearing in his third straight all-Argentine final, having won the Roland Garros title crown (d. Guillermo Coria) and lost to Mariano Zabaleta in last week’s tournament in Bastad.

In Amersfoort, the Dutch are dancing in the streets as No. 4 seed Martin Verkerk claimed his second career ATP title defeating Chilean No. 2 seed Fernando Gonzalez 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4. Verkerk becomes the second Dutchman ever to claim this title following Tom Okker’s feat in 1973. Verkerk improves to 26-19 in 2004 and pockets a cozy € 51,400. Meanwhile, Gonzo is now 1-1 in ATP finals in 2004, having won his home event in Viña del Mar earlier in the year. He is 3-4 in career ATP finals and now holds a 32-14 record for the year.

Next week, the US Open series continues in Indianapolis as Andy Roddick and friends pick up their RCA-stuffed gift bag. Those wishing not to travel to the hardcourts of Indy can seek refuge like Carlos Moya, Guillermo Canas and Bohdan Ulihrach have done in the beautiful resort town of Umag, Croatia. And if you’re not an Indy or Umag kinda guy (we feel you), head on over to lovely Kitzbuhel, where you can hang with the likes of Rainer Schuettler, Gaston Gaudio, Nicolas Massu, Albert Costa, Mariano Zabaleta and the roaming gnome from those Travelocity commercials. We hear it’s nice, and the chicken wings are good, too. Okay, we made up the part about the chicken wings so don't send us e-mail.

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NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Kudus to ESPN for seamlessly switching from live extended Stanford Davenport-Williams coverage to LA’s Haas-Kiefer match. The US Open Series is working, in that regard at least. And during the end of the Davenport-Williams match, they actually gave the update on the score of an all-German match which had already started…For what it’s worth, Lindsay Davenport is No. 1 in the US Open Series women’s rankings while Tommy Haas leads the pack on the men’s side. What this really means is not quite clear, but we’ll mention it just in hopes of getting credentialed at the US Open…Speaking of the US Open, will they have a ceremony for Marcelo Rios now that he has officially retired? Probably not. Okay, well what about Lindsay Davenport?...Will someone other than the ATP test Guillermo Canas for drugs?...Just a thought, with the ATP in charge of the drug program, why would they ever accuse anyone of doping, especially a top guy? Remember, they need the players – the top players that is, and not Bohdan Ulihrach – to promote the sport, so why would they ever implicate a Top 10 guy when they could just say he was given a tainted substance and let him off the hook? Think about it, and think about which player came out of nowhere to win a big title between August 2002 and May 2003…”I’m not afraid of ya” rhymes with Vince Spadea. Just a note that may help you get thru the day…If you caught the ESPYs last night on ESPN, you should be shot. No really, it’s just a sad display of corporate America that hopefully tennis stars like Roger Federer and Kim Clijsters never become part of…Since Andy Roddick was hanging in L.A. all week - attending the Jimmy Kimmel Show, doing a CNBC interview and styling as a presenter at the ESPYs Wednesday night - why didn’t he play in the L.A. tournament? Guess off court is more important than on court. Oh wait, you have a hip injury. We forgot...Alex Bogdanovic just won his first career Challenger title in Manchester on Sunday. The odd thing is Bogdanovic credits his win to getting pounded by Roger Federer in the first round at Wimbledon. Said Bogie to the Daily Telegraph: "Even though I lost (to Federer) I was able to take a lot out of that match. I'm mentally stronger, physically I'm getting there and I just felt really good again about my game."…Tommy Haas joins Jimmy Conners as the only other unseeded LA champion in the Open Era…Temperatures in Stanford Sunday reached over 90F…Credit to Ivan Lendl for finishing 7th in the American Century Golf celebrity event at Lake Tahoe this weekend. Pete Sampras finished 33rd, just slightly ahead of super-athlete Maury Povich…If you lived in Indianapolis, would you buy a ticket to a Monday night session that features Greg Rusedski vs. Thomas Johansson? At least you’d fork over only $12 for the cheap seats and get to see Chipper and Nipper…Apparently the player hotel in Stanford had a fire alarm at 4am Sunday morning, which awoke finalists Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport. Neither player left their room as it was a false alarm…More Williams non-credit to the opponent, this from Venus after her loss to Davenport Sunday courtesy of the San Fran Chronicle: "I know today wasn't my best day and it was still 7-6 in the third. If I would have played decent, I would have won the match."