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Aus Open: Davenport enters third round
Davenport beat Sprem in the second round of Australia Open.
Lindsay Davenport got a tough workout in the second round of the Australian Open before advancing 7-6 (4), 6-3 on Wednesday over Karolina Sprem.
After trading breaks in the third and fourth games, the first set went on serve, with Davenport winning the 12th game at love to force a tiebreaker.
Trailing 3-1, the top-ranked Davenport rallied after Sprem double-faulted, winning six of the last seven points and claiming the set with consecutive forehand winners.
"After being down in the tiebreaker, to come back and construct a few really good points, it was very key to get out of that," said Davenport. The 2000 Australian Open champion had six breakpoint chances in the second set before finally converting after the sixth game went to deuce six times. Two of Davenport's three previous wins over Sprem have come at majors. She won in the fourth-round here last year en route to the final and the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 2004, after Sprem had upset then defending champion Venus Williams. Sprem worked Davenport around with some big serves and powerful forehands in the 1 hour, 25-minute match on Vodafone Arena, but let herself down with nine double-faults. Davenport was consistent, winning 80 per cent of points on her first serve, firing six aces, hitting 18 winners in what she described as "nice contained tennis."
"It was a really tough match," said Davenport. "I knew she definitely had the ability to be dangerous, and that was the best that she's played against me.
"I felt like I was hitting the ball well, just not quite hitting my spots. So really tough match to pull out. But was able to play well when I needed to."
Davenport said she was surprised on occasions at how quickly the ball was coming back at her.
"Maybe I was just caught a little off guard," she said. "I was able to come through not playing perfect tennis but I still thought I did some things well _ everything about the match was a positive for me.
"She next plays the winner of Wednesday's later match between Russians Maria Kirilenko and Galina Voskoboeva. In other women's matches, Olga Savchuk of Ukraine beat 23rd-seeded Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-4 and Elena Vesnina had a 6-0, 7-5 win over Julia Schruff, who had ousted ninth-seeded Elena Dementieva in the first round. Defending women's champion Serena Williams was to play Camille Pin of France later Wednesday, while No 4 Maria Sharapova faced American Ashley Harkleroad.
On the men's side, No 7 Ivan Ljubicic advanced 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 over Philipp Kohlschreiber, No 8 Guillermo Coria beat German qualifier Lars Burgsmuller 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 and France's Fabrice Santoro defeated Andrei Pavel 6-4, 6-1, 6-4.No 2 Andy Roddick was scheduled to play Wesley Moodie.
