On Her Terms

PALO ALTO —  The rest of her life beckoned.

A life without endless travel and endless practice and endless battles with Serena and Venus Williams, who, Lindsay Davenport admits, are so strong and fast and clever that it was getting to be that maybe her best shot at beating the top two ranked women’s tennis players in the world was “to hope they made a lot of errors.”

Selling real estate. That wouldn’t be bad, Davenport thought as she sat with her crutches beside her, looking at the Pacific out the windows of her Laguna Beach home. That might be easier than beating Serena and Venus. But Davenport, 26, isn’t ready for easy yet.

She is tiptoeing back to the WTA Tour after undergoing complicated surgery on her right knee in January.

In her first tournament since limping off a court in Munich, Germany, last January, Davenport made it to the semifinals of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford last week. She beat Anne Kremer and Jelena Dokic and lost to Kim Clijsters in a three-set match that Davenport led, 6-4, 4-2.

What is clear is that Davenport’s extraordinary ability to hit a clean, hard, flat, penetrating ground stroke was untouched by her surgery. What Davenport needs now is to gain strength and fitness. “No matter how hard you work,” Davenport says, “there’s nothing that can get you in tennis shape except playing tennis matches.”

So that’s what Davenport is going to do. She is playing in the Acura Classic at La Costa this week and in Manhattan Beach next week. Her immediate aim is to just play and see what happens. “Talking about winning the Open or beating Venus and Serena, I don’t even listen to that,” Davenport says. “My focus now is to get better day by day.”

Her future aim is to be totally fit for the start of 2003, to be positioned physically and mentally to win more Grand Slam titles. Davenport has one each of the Wimbledon, Australian and U.S. Open trophies.

Had she decided that her body had handled enough stress and strain, and that 10 years of being a tennis pro was plenty, Davenport could have used this injury as a convenient career-ender. She would have left on top, having finished 2001 ranked No. 1. She would have accomplished more than anyone had expected of the clumsy, pudgy teenager who arrived on the circuit with gorgeous strokes and no idea how to move her 6-foot-2 body.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Davenport says. “What I am absolutely sure of is that my desire to play tennis is as strong as ever. I’m looking at this time off as a blessing in a way. I’m so much fresher now. This might actually prolong my career because I feel ready to play another two or three years.”

While Davenport and Martina Hingis, rehabilitating a serious ankle injury, have been out of tennis, Venus and Serena Williams have taken over. The sisters played each other in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon. Serena is ranked No. 1. Venus is No. 2. They have found no one but each other to push them.

Talented players such as Jennifer Capriati and Amelie Mauresmo have dismissed the Williams’ accomplishments as the sad result of Davenport and Hingis being missing. In her nine months away from the tour, Davenport became the hope of jealous players and unappreciative fans who think she can break the Williams’ logjam at the U.S. Open..

“That’s asking a bit much,” Davenport says. “Venus and Serena are playing great tennis. I hope I can. I don’t know how long it will take though. This is all new.”

Davenport had plenty of time to think after five holes had been drilled into her knee because the cartilage was pretty much gone and bone was rubbing on bone. There was plenty of time to consider a life that didn’t include taking her body on long, pounding runs across hot, hard tennis courts all summer or the slippery grass in June or the sticky, sluggish clay of April and May or the unforgiving indoor surfaces of January and February.

There was lots of time to dream about a life that didn’t include an airplane ride 40 weeks a year, one minus the rigid schedule of hitting, running and lifting, one that instead might be filled with childish games with a young niece or a romp in the yard with the dogs. Or whatever, whenever. A life without the discipline of clean living and days with precious little rest.

“I only thought about that for a second,” Davenport says. “Maybe not even that long.”

Davenport had just wiped away a few tears and applied a smile that wouldn’t go away.

She had played, and won, her first tennis match since Nov. 2. Kremer, the beaten opponent in the second round of the Bank of the West Classic, said with some awe that, “Lindsay doesn’t seem any different now than before.”

But Davenport is different.

While she didn’t win a Grand Slam last year, Davenport finished the 2001 season with a spirited European vacation. Davenport won three consecutive tournaments and flew home giggling because the WTA rankings listed her as No. 1 for the season. If her right knee ached and if she had to forfeit her last match because of the pain in her knee, Davenport felt sure it would heal with rest.

It didn’t. It hurt after Davenport practiced for 10 or 20 minutes. It hurt when she walked and even more when she ran. The holidays passed and the knee didn’t stop hurting. Doctors had told Davenport to rest the knee and she did, and so what?

“The pain wasn’t going away,” Davenport says. An MRI the first week of January showed serious damage. In the only way Davenport can describe her injury, “the bones were knocking together in the bottom right part of my knee. The cartilage had fractured.”

Dr. Richard Steadman performed surgery in Colorado and told Davenport a simple truth: “It was going to take me a long time to recover and there was no way to shorten the recovery,” Davenport says.

“Nine and a half weeks on crutches. Putting my leg in this machine that massaged my knee eight hours a day. I hated that machine, seeing my knee atrophy and starting to work to get it back. I couldn’t drive. Everything that Dr. Steadman said was true.”

But she never paused to feel sorry for herself. “Lindsay made up her mind to come back and never once did I have to push her,” said Robert Van’t Hof, Davenport’s coach and chauffeur and workout partner and motivator. “In fact, more than once I had to slow her down.”

Davenport appeared in perfect physical shape last week. “You look great, Lindsay,” became a happy refrain around Stanford’s Taube Tennis Center. Davenport rolled up her sweats to show how muscle tone is still missing from her right knee. But not much.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s fair to expect Davenport to do what no one else has done--stop the Williams train.

“Venus and Serena are playing great tennis,” Davenport says. “I want to beat them. I think I have the game that can do it. But it’s not all up to me. It’s up to everybody to get better. Venus and Serena are challenging everybody and I know I want to accept the challenge.

“All I know is that I still love the game, the competition of it all. I want to push myself. No matter how long a person plays, your career is going to be a very short period of your life and I want to make that period last.”

So she’s back. On her terms. Not desperate to be No. 1, but determined to win another Grand Slam tournament. Not seeing herself as some savior, just back playing the game of her life.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at [email protected].