Davenport Is Still Set to Stun

PARIS â€”  It was coming down to timekeeping and sheer preservation of dignity at the French Open.

Lindsay Davenport had won only two games against Kim Clijsters of Belgium midway through the second set, and the minutes were flying by at a disconcerting rate.

“I was just looking at the clock more than anything hoping she would get to an hour,� said Adam Peterson, Davenport’s coach.

As it turned out, Davenport’s time-management skills were in working order. And, more important, her ability to close here remained intact. The top-seeded Davenport staged a memorable rally to defeat No. 14 Clijsters, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, in 1 hour 35 minutes Sunday in the fourth round.

To call it a stunning development is an understatement. It was the first time in 2 1/2 years Davenport had defeated Clijsters, ending a run of six consecutive losses. Not only was Clijsters favored to win on any surface, but Roland Garros is a place where she has reached two finals.

Who wasn’t surprised by the turn of events?

Davenport certainly was.

“Just really a bit amazed I was able to pull that match out today,� she said, “considering how bad I was losing and the previous records against her and it being on clay.�

There was also one sleepy husband, Jon Leach. He got a phone call from Davenport shortly after the match had ended -- 3:46 a.m., California time -- well before the newspaper hit the pavement in Laguna Beach. “He was floored,� Davenport said. “He was like, ‘What?’ �

Rarely has a No. 1 player been so underestimated. Davenport had provided little evidence of impending French Open success. She has trailed in every match, and was two points from departure in the second round against Shaui Peng of China.

“She’s been winning ugly -- she’s had flashes of great tennis and flashes of kind of subpar,� Peterson said. “She had [a] year this year where she’s dug out a lot of three-setters.�

So, if she could rally so many times, why not once more? And Clijsters, who has been dealing with a recent right knee injury, has been mentally vulnerable at Grand Slam events even in the best of times.

“I was winning my matches easily, but I didn’t have that good feeling out there,� Clijsters said. “I think when you play lower-ranked girls, it’s OK. I’m a good enough player to deal with that. But when you play someone like Lindsay, you have to play almost your best tennis. And I did that for a while.�

Just not long enough. Slowly, Davenport worked on cutting into the lead and then pulled even, getting her first service break in the sixth game of the second set when Clijsters hit a forehand long, making it 3-3.

Clijsters refused to use her injury as an excuse. It was clear, however, that she was unable to get an extra push off her right leg, which was taped around the knee for support. It appeared to mostly affect her serve. She double faulted 11 times, including five in the decisive set, and had 41 unforced errors.

“I felt like the forehand had broken down a little bit,� said Davenport, who won four of the final five games. “One thing that hadn’t happened in previous matches is I was getting a lot of double faults. Eventually, the match started to go my way.�

This is the first time she has reached the quarterfinals here since 1999. It also is light years from last year’s painful fourth-round loss to Elena Dementieva, in which Davenport felt pain in her right knee -- the same knee on which she had surgery to correct a cartilage defect in 2002.

“I’ll never forget the doctor’s words to me: ‘Your knee will be fine, but once you hurt it again, you’ll be done because there’s nothing I can do to fix it twice,’ � Davenport said of the surgery, which caused her to sit out for nine months. “I remember playing that match [last year] with my knee hurting and even crying at one point thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it.’ �

It wasn’t. The pain was in a different part of the knee, and Davenport went on to regain the No. 1 ranking in October and reach the Australian Open final in January. Now she will face Mary Pierce of France on Tuesday for a spot in the semifinals.

Pierce, seeded 21st, needed attention for a sore left ankle after her fourth-round match but survived a drama-filled day. She needed 11 match points to defeat No. 8 Patty Schnyder of Switzerland, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.

“Felt like I had more than that, actually, more than 11,� Pierce said, smiling.

Five women’s fourth-matches were completed, one of them 15-year-old Sesil Karatantcheva’s 7-5, 6-3 victory against Emmanuelle Gagliardi.

The weather later turned inclement. Though umbrellas went up around Court Philippe Chatrier, the Rafael Nadal-Sebastien Grosjean match was allowed to continue for some time. Finally, it was stopped at 7:30 p.m. Paris time, with Nadal leading, 6-4, 3-6, 3-0.

Top-seeded Roger Federer of Switzerland was done well before the rain, partly because of his usual efficiency, and also because of Carlos Moya’s shoulder injury. Federer defeated the 14th-seeded Spaniard, 6-1, 6-4, 6-3, in the fourth round. This matches Federer’s best showing at Roland Garros, and he has yet to drop a set.

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French Open

Highlights from Day 7:

* Men’s seeded winners: No. 1 Roger Federer, No. 9 Guillermo Canas, No. 28 Nicolas Kiefer.

* Men’s seeded losers: No. 10 David Nalbandian, No. 14 Carlos Moya.

* Women’s seeded winners: No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, No. 7 Nadia Petrova, No. 16 Elena Likhovtseva, No. 21 Mary Pierce.

* Women’s seeded losers: No. 4 Elena Dementieva, No. 8 Patty Schnyder, No. 12 Elena Bovina, No. 14 Kim Clijsters.

TODAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

* Svetlana Kuznetsova (6), Russia, vs. Justine Henin-Hardenne (10), Belgium.

* Rafael Nadal (4), Spain, vs. Sebastien Grosjean (23), France, completion of suspended match.