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| October 15, 2001 | Monday | Rajab 27, 1422 |
Davenport holds nerves to overpower Henin
FILDERSTADT (Germany) Oct 14: Lindsay Davenport held her nerve to outpower a combative Justine Henin 7-5 6-4 to win the Filderstadt Grand Prix on Sunday.
Wimbledon runner-up Henin, the sixth seed, went down fighting, saving three match points before third seed Davenport fired a service winner to seal victory after one hour and 32 minutes.
American Davenport broke Henin in the seventh game of the first set. The Belgian teenager broke back two games later but dropped serve immediately afterwards and Davenport served for the set, wrapping it up with a backhand winner.
Davenport broke Henin again straight away in the second set and was leading 5-3 when she earned three match points.
Henin saved them all but Davenport then served for the match and gained two more match points. One was all she needed.
The 25-year-old Davenport, who had reached the Filderstadt final in 1998, paid tribute to her 19-year-old opponent after claiming her fifth title of the year.
SHANGHAI: Top-seeded Monica Seles beat Nicole Pratt of Australia 6-2 6-3 to win the Shanghai Open on Sunday, her third title in the past month.
Seles hit 30 winners in the match, compared to just seven for her unseeded opponent.
Pratt, ranked 65th in the world, was appearing in her first WTA tournament final.
Seles won $22,000 while Pratt took home $12,000.
Not one of the biggest servers on the tour, Seles had Pratt on the defensive from the beginning with a solid service game.
Pratt won only seven points on the American’s serve in the match, while struggling to hold her own. Seles broke Pratt’s serve four times, twice in each set.
After losing the opening set, Pratt came out attacking early in the second set, matching Seles’s powerful groundstrokes.
Pratt hit several winners off her forehand side en route to taking a 2-1 lead but then lost concentration in the fifth game to drop her serve again.
Seles lost only one point in her final two service games.
VIENNA: Germany’s Tommy Haas clinched his third title of the year on Sunday, beating Argentine Guillermo Canas 6-2 7-6 6-4 at the indoor CA Trophy.
Sixth seed Haas, who made amends for losing to Briton Tim Henman in last year’s final of the $800,000 hardcourt event, also won in Adelaide and Long Island and is currently 16th in the ATP Champions Race.
Victory in Vienna has kept alive the 23-year-old’s hopes of qualifying for the season-ending Masters Cup in Sydney, which has a draw of just eight players.
Haas raced through the first set in 30 minutes by breaking his opponent’s serve in the sixth and eighth games. He mixed up the pace with numerous charges to the net, which he converted into winners as Canas remained glued to the baseline.
The second set developed into a hard-fought battle with both players dropping their serve before ending up in a tie-break. Canas seemed to be risking all by going for the lines, but Haas stayed in contention by mustering his powerful serve for quick points.
The German eventually won the tie-break 8-6 after Canas failed to capitalise on a set point at 6-5.
The final set was a see-saw with both players struggling to hold serve throughout. But Haas managed to tip the balance with a break in the ninth game to then serve out for victory.
PARIS: Unseeded Croat Ivan Ljubicic won his first ATP Tour title by crushing Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui 6-3 6-2 in the final of the Lyon Grand Prix on Sunday.
The 22-year-old, who cites Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic as his inspiration, took less than an hour to dismiss El Aynaoui.
Ljubicic had already beaten world number one and top seed Gustavo Kuerten in the first round and third seed Marat Safin of Russia in the semifinal on his way to victory in the $800,0000 tournament.
Ljubicic broke El Aynaoui in the fourth game of the first set and twice in the second, in the third and seventh games, to claim victory.
ZURICH: Martina Hingis, who will be overtaken by Jennifer Capriati at the top of the world rankings on Monday, will miss the remainder of the season after having surgery on damaged ankle ligaments on Sunday.
The 21-year-old Swiss underwent an operation in Zurich after twisting her right ankle in her semifinal against Lindsay Davenport at the Filderstadt Grand Prix on Saturday.
Surgeon Heinz Buehlmann, who performed the operation, said she would be out of action for around two months.
“Her season is certainly over,” said Buehlmann.
“I think she will be able to start running again in six to eight weeks and we have time to build her up nicely until November or December. I think she will certainly be back on the court and training in two months.”
Hingis, who had been in the number one position without a break since May last year, trailed Davenport 2-1 in the southern German city when she had to retire. She needed to reach the Filderstadt final to remain in the driving seat.—Reuters
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