Davenport stays top of the World

LOS ANGELES—Lindsay Davenport couldn’t add to her stash of Grand Slam titles in 2005, but the 29-year-old American will end the season as world number one for the fourth time in her career.
Davenport fell to Russian Maria Sharapova in round-robin play at the WTA Tour Championships on Thursday, but she still advanced to the semi-finals.
And Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo’s win over Russian Elena Dementieva but paid to Kim Clijsters’s Championships bid and her year-end world No. 1 aspirations.
That means Davenport will finish on top for the second straight year.
“I wouldn’t have felt last year that I have a chance to do that again,” admitted Davenport, who two years ago was talking about retirement amid nagging injuries and sub-par performances.
That talk petered out as she reached the semi-finals at both Wimbledon and the US Open in 2004.
And this year she came even closer to adding to her three major crowns, reaching the finals at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Of the four years in which Davenport has finished the season number one — 1998, 2001, 2004 and now 2005, only one has included a Grand Slam crown: the US Open in ‘98.
Clijsters’s failure to press her challenge — after a season that saw her rise spectacularly from outside the top 100 with nine tournament victories, including the US Open, was a disappointment.
But the Belgian said she could feel the cumulative effect of her season’s efforts as she struggled to overcome fatigue in her first two matches here.
“I played a lot of matches and tournaments,” she said. “And I have traveled a lot.
“And also since the US Open, it is not just the tennis attention, there’s everything else, too. In a way it drains you a little bit more because there are more things happening, more expected, more things to do.
“It is fun for a while, but that is something I have learned in the last few years, that rest is as important as playing”.—Agencies