Davenport defeats Seles at Toray Pan Pacific final

By Etienne Stekelenburg
February 2 2003

After a being away from the tour for eight months Lindsay Davenport is back in business and won her first WTA tournament since her recovery. Davenport lost the first set against Monica Seles in the Toray Pan Pacific Open final but played her best tennis since months and won the following sets.

After being away from the tour for eight months due to her knee injury Lindsay Davenport is enjoying tennis again. She didn’t have to focus on tennis for a while but spend time with her family, friends and her dog, which she says is like a son to her. She also got engaged last September and her fiancé also helped her out when she didn’t have a coach last autumn.

Davenport explained what happened with her surgery; “Oh, well, it's complicated. I had worn away all the cartridge above tippy bone. It's so complicated, procedure called micro-fracture. It was done to try and get cartridge to grow back. It's very rare, and then to help it heal I was on crutches for eight weeks. And it was just a slow process.”

Monica Seles was having trouble with her serve and let Davenport back into the match after she had won the first set tiebreaker 7-6 (6). The serve turned out to be the key factor in the match after Davenport did place her service very well and Seles had trouble ‘reading’ them. After Davenport broke Seles’ serve for the second time in the second set she know she was out of the match. She was very happy to have reached the Toray Pan Pacific final and is looking for a healthy injury free continuation on the tour.