Saturday Review - Clijsters, Venus & Capriati win

By Chris Davies
May 31 2003

Kim Clijsters, Jennifer Capriati, Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport all sealed their fourth round berths comfortably beating their opponents respectively

Kim Clijsters was the first out on Phillippe Chatrier court playing clay court specialist Paola Suarez. The Belgian raced into a 4-0 lead in the first set with the Argentian coming back for 4-2 but Clijsters easily finished off the set 6-2.

The second set was even easier winning 6-1 with an ace on her second match point moving into the fourth round against Magdalena Maleeva who beat Rita Grande 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

Jennifer Capriati was the next to advance beating Ukraine's Julia Vakulenko 6-1, 6-2 and was pleased with her form at current.

"It was kind of easy most of the way. I can still feel I'm playing well". She will now play Nadia Petrova who she beat in Rome two weeks ago.

"She's got a big serve, she hits big shorts off the ground. I think it's up to how I play"

Venus Williams put her dreadful second round match behind her with a powerful groundstrokes but is still struggling from the abdominal strain injury she sustained a month ago.

"I'm doing fine. I'm icing a lot to prevent any huge flare-ups".

She faces a difficult match in the next round against Vera Zvonareva the 22nd seed who beat Maria Sanchez Lorenzo.

She easily beat Siliva Farina Elia who didn't do enough to get Williams on the run and cause the injury to flare up during the match winning 6-1, -3.

Lindsay Davenport had a tough work out against French favourite Nathalie Dechy and suffering from a trapped nerve in her left foot. The first set seemed comfortable for Davenport 6-3 and looked as if the American would pull away in the second set but it wasn't so scrapping through in a 7-5 set which could have easily gone to the 25th seed.

Davenport will next play Conchita Martinez who beat Tina Pisnik 6-3, 6-3.