Clijsters Wins Indian Wells, Hewitt Continues Mastery of Roddick

Posted on March 20, 2005

Federer, Hewitt Advance to ATP Indian Wells Final

World No. 1 Roger Federer, who had lost to Guillermo Canas in their only meeting in the pre-Fed-as-No. 1 days, punished the Argentine 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the final Saturday at the ATP stop in Indian Wells.

"I'm very happy the way I'm playing," Federer said. "You know, I had to actually fight to actually really play well today. He was giving me a hard time. I had a few tough couple of games. You know, once I got through that, my rhythm really started to pick up and I started to play better."

In the final the Swiss will face Lleyton Hewitt, who weathered 25 aces from Andy Roddick to edge the American 7-6(3), 6-7(2), 7-6(4).

"I'm disappointed, but I'm not upset because I feel like I played a really good match," Roddick said. "I really kind of switched up the strategy and I feel like I applied my game plan pretty well. And I think it took -- I know it took the best of Lleyton tonight."

On the line for Federer is 16 consecutive wins in finals, while Hewitt has now won three in a row over Roddick.

"Any time you play a third-set tiebreaker, it's a lucky door prize a little," Hewitt said. "I just felt like I dictated play when I needed to. I hustled when I needed to I got those extra balls back when I needed to."

Federer has won his last six meetings with Hewitt, with the last two coming at the 2004 Masters Cup.

In the doubles final, top seeds Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor edged Aussie No. 7 seeds Wayne Arthurs and Paul Hanley 7-6(6), 7-6(2) for their first title of the year.

Clijsters Outlasts Davenport for WTA Indian Wells Title

Former No. 1 Kim Clijsters, currently ranked outside the Top 100 after an extended layoff due to wrist surgery, announced her return as a force with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win over world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport Saturday in the final at the WTA stop in Indian Wells.

"It's amazing. I was sitting, after we shook hands, on the chair and I just couldn't believe it," Clijsters said. "I was just sitting there looking at my mom and my coach in my box, saying, 'You know, this is true.' I was looking up at the score board."

Down 0-4 to begin the match, Clijsters ripped off six games in a row to take the first set, and held her nerve in the third after the American leveled the match. It was only the second event of 2005 for Clijsters, who lost to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals in her return weeks ago at Antwerp.

"It was crazy," Davenport said. "You know, started off really well and was really excited about that. Kind of continued where I was yesterday, being aggressive and going for my shots. Was able in those first few games to pull out some close ones and get a good lead. As quickly as I was pulling those games out, I was losing them."

With the win Clijsters became the lowest-ranked player in WTA Tour history to win a Tier I event.

"You know, it doesn't happen that often that you have the crowd support behind you straightaway from the beginning of the match," Clijsters said.

Davenport dropped to 1-3 in finals this year after losing to Serena Williams at the Australian Open, and to Maria Sharapova at Tokyo.

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TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Official ESPN Rant: So how about ESPN, the host broadcaster for the ATP Indian Wells event in the U.S., managing to show neither the Roger Federer-Guillermo Canas or Andy Roddick-Lleyton Hewitt semifinals on Saturday? Sure, you've got commitments for women's basketball and wrestling and curling or whatever, but what about throwing it on ESPN Classic (instead of hockey re-runs) or ESPN U. or ESPN Plus or any of the other 23 ESPN channels? That is downright sad -- the world No. 1 Federer, former No. 1s Roddick and Hewitt, you can't get a much better dream line-up that that, all on the same day, and it goes unwatched in the U.S. -- in the U.S. we call that "dropping the ball." Why not just figure out a way to release one-day rights to The Tennis Channel? Can you imagine a broadcaster buying the rights to a major sporting event, like The Masters golf or the World Cup, and not showing it? One of the ATP's top-level events? Mindboggling. End rant transmission...Kim Clijsters on her website, staying close to the fans: "I would also like to congratulate Sarah for her birthday! Sarah is one of the fans who frequents my forum a lot and she'll be 24 on Friday. It is difficult to call from such a distance, the time difference and all, but happy birthday from here! ;-)"...Mark Philippoussis lost to Christophe "The Roach" Rochus at the Sunrise (Florida) Challenger...Maria Sharapova coach Robert Lansdorp, speaking to The Times, on his charge: "Maria has got to be far more sensible than she is being right now. I want her to play this game at a very high level for many years and if she's sensible there's no question she will become the world's No 1 player. But right now she's not physically strong enough to maintain the schedule that's been set for her. It was painful to watch her against Lindsay. I was shocked by what I saw because she seems exhausted. She was playing on empty and had no physical reserves to call upon. Maria is still a month short of her 18th birthday but she's been putting far too many demands on her body. She's been flying all over the world but struggles badly to overcome jet lag and she's been playing far too many tournaments. We are only halfway through March but already this year she's been to Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, back to the United States, off to Doha in the Middle East and now here in California. She's been sick on a couple of occasions, flew all the way to Paris and then was forced to pull out of the tournament because she was suffering from flu. Now it's all taken its toll and she's got to invest more time away from the tour to ensure she makes herself physically stronger...I said the time has come to be sensible and it would be best if she did not play next week's Nasdaq 100 Open in Miami."...Jimmy Connors has pulled from his previously-announced effort to help British juniors...Pete Sampras speaking to The Times on his career low point: "In tennis, it was losing to (George) Bastl at Wimbledon in 2002. Do you know what was weird? I got to the press conference and I could feel I was going to cry. I got home and I did cry. I was so hurt, so sad, so very sad. It was the lowest I'd been as a tennis player."