Sampras, Davenport Roll Headliners Advance To Quarterfinals At Australian Open Tennis Tournament
Venus Williams watched her younger sister, Serena, beat Lindsay Davenport in the tuneup for the Australian Open. Now Venus will try to do the same when it counts a lot more.
Davenport, the No. 2 seed, produced the first double-bagel of her career, a 48-minute 6-0, 6-0 wipeout of No. 15 Ruxandra Dragomir under the roof during the rain Sunday to set up a quarterfinals confrontation against the elder Williams.
In truth, that wasn’t the best preparation for Davenport before playing Williams.
“Venus hits the ball a lot harder than anyone I’ve played against so far in this tournament, so I’ll definitely have to practice tomorrow and tell my coach to crank it up,” Davenport said.
An Olympic gold medal from Atlanta is the most prominent of Davenport’s treasures, the one reminder that when she’s on she can beat anyone.
Davenport’s quest to add a Grand Slam title to that gold has been curiously blunted. Though she has won 13 events on the WTA Tour since 1993, Davenport had not gone past the quarters of any of the four majors until last September, when she reach the semis of the U.S. Open.
Davenport has her chance again, but standing in her way is the speedy and aggressive 17-year-old Williams, who lost to Hingis in the U.S. Open final and has moved up quickly in the rankings to No. 16.
Williams looked impressive in reaching the semis with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Patty Schnyder.
Williams lost her two duels with Davenport last year, one on hardcourt in Indian Wells, Calif., in March, the other indoors in Zurich in October.
In the first loss, Williams said, “I was unwise.” In the second, “I didn’t have a forehand. Plus she just played well. I wasn’t really willing to play aggressive, and she really just overpowered me. She served well, too. So I’ll be ready.”
Williams has improved so much, getting better and smarter with each match, that her record against particular players means little.
On the men’s side, Hicham Arazi amazed Pete Sampras, but he didn’t beat him.
“He was one of the quickest players I have ever played,” Sampras said. “He is up there with (Michael) Chang with foot speed.”
Arazi, a left-handed Moroccan ranked No. 47 in the world, had twice rallied to win in five sets, once against No. 15 seed Mark Philippoussis. But this was Sampras, who withstood a tough first set to win 7-6 (11-9), 6-4, 6-4 and advance to the quarterfinals.
“I was surprised the way he served a lot of aces, a lot of service winners,” Sampras said. “I thought I was hitting some big shots, had him on the ropes, and he came up with some huge winners.”