Sampras, Davenport Advance to Semis

N E W   Y O R K, Sept. 7, 2000 -- It was a night of paybacks for Pete Sampras andLindsay Davenport, each of them conquering a personal tormentor andedging closer to regaining the U.S. Open titles they once held.

For the four-time champion Sampras, it was the sweet 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-4, 6-2 defeat Wednesday night of Richard Krajicek, who hadthe best record against him of any active player and was the onlyman to beat him at Wimbledon in the past eight years.

For Davenport, the women’s titlist in 1998, it was a 6-4, 6-2quarterfinal rout of defending champion Serena Williams that endeda string of five straight losses to her over the past three years.

Sampras moved into the semifinals against Lleyton Hewitt, a19-year-old Australian who is seeking to become the youngest winnersince Sampras won his first title in 1990.

Miracle Comeback in Tiebreaker

The 6-foot-5 Krajicek, who beat Sampras en route to winningWimbledon in 1996 and had held a 6-3 record against him, sought toimpose his big serve on Sampras once again. He did just that in thefirst set and wound up with 23 aces, but the match turned on aspellbinding comeback by Sampras from 2-6 in the second-settiebreaker.

Facing four set points, Sampras saved them all. First came aspectacular drop volley that nicked the net cord. Next there was aforehand return that Sampras mis-hit but saw land safely for awinner. He then drilled a perfect backhand pass into the corner andpumped his fist to the crowd.

When he saved number four with an approach shot that Krajiceknetted, and followed it up with a service winner and a sizzlingreturn winner to close out the set, Sampras delivered an uppercutto the air that might as well have been straight to Krajicek’s jaw.

“It was his tiebreaker, somehow,” said Krajicek, who couldn’tfigure out how it slipped away. “It was meant to be that he wouldwin that set. I don’t know.”

‘I Thought I Was Gone’

The match was virtually over right there as Krajicek saggedvisibly and Sampras kept up the pressure.

“I thought I was finished. I was getting outplayed,” saidSampras, now 14-0 in night matches at the open. “Richard puts alot of pressure on my service game. I thought I was gone. Richardalways plays me tough. After I won the second set, Richard got alittle down. The second set turned the match around. I was makinghim play. It was a big match.”

The Davenport-Williams match was big, too, but unexpectedlyone-sided.

Williams fractured her racket on the court as her game fellapart, and Davenport emerged from the shadows as a forgotten formerchampion to a berth in the semis.

Williams, the defending champion who was so eager to meet hersister, Venus, in the final, succumbed to her own impatience andDavenport’s deep, sizzling groundstrokes in a rout that tookeveryone by surprise.

Everyone except Davenport.

Davenport never fell for all the hype over a Williams sistersfinal, never worried about her record against Serena—fivestraight losses over the past three years.

Clearing ‘the Hurdle’

“It feels great to get over the hurdle of beating her,”Davenport said. “It was a big match to get through, but I’m onlyinto the semis and I look to keep going.

“There’s no revenge. I’m going to lose to her again and I’mgoing to beat her again.”

Williams said Davenport’s performance was “the best she everplayed against me. She should take that attitude toward everyone.”

Three of their matches were close three-setters, including theirsemifinal meeting at the U.S. Open last year, and Davenport knewthat she could beat Williams if she could hold serve, keep thepressure on her and pin her to the baseline.

That’s exactly what Davenport did, and Williams finally crackedat 4-4 in the first set, slapping forehands long on the final twoshots of her service game and screaming in frustration as she wasbroken.

“When I broke her at 4-all it seemed to deflate her,”Davenport said. “She had break points and didn’t take advantage.”

Racket Abuse

Williams rapped her racket on the court, but not nearly as hardas she did in the next game when she netted a backhand for a secondset point. The racket frame broke this time, leading to anautomatic code violation for racket abuse, and for all practicalpurposes her game was undone, too.

Another backhand error by Williams gave Davenport the set, andDavenport went on to win six straight games and take a 4-0 lead inthe second set as Williams lost control of her shots. It wasn’t acase of Williams simply missing close shots. She was too excited,too caught up in trying to blow Davenport away with power, and shenever found a backup plan.

“I played exactly the way I wanted to,” Davenport said. “Iwas aggressive when I needed to be. She thinks she didn’t playwell. I thought I played well to make her not play well.”

Williams never quit, and saved five match points to hold serveto 5-2, but that was her last stand. Never broken in the match,Davenport served it out in the next game.

Davenport will play Russia’s 18-year-old Elena Dementieva, whoupset No. 10 Anke Huber 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, in the semifinals.

“She plays it very simple, but she doesn’t make a lot of stupiderrors,” Huber said.

Sister Act on Hold

Williams insisted that she and Venus, the Wimbledon champion whowill play Martina Hingis in the other semifinal on Friday, will bein a Grand Slam final together some day.

Told that Hingis and Davenport had a discussion about notwanting to see an all-Williams final, Serena said she wasn’tsurprised.

“Not at all,” she said. “That’s the way a lot of people wouldwant it. I’m sure a lot of people never want to see an all-Williamsfinal. It’s going to happen in the future inevitably. Nobody’sgoing to be able to stop it.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t pull my end up this year. I’m going todo my utmost to make sure it happens ... because that just what Iwould like. Obviously, no one would want to see an all-Williamsfinal because everyone doesn’t really like us. That’s just the wayit is.”

Pressed about why she thought the other players might not likethem, Williams got annoyed, said “I don’t know,” and abruptlywalked out of the news conference.

Hewitt, seeded No. 9, beat Frenchman Arnaud Clement 6-2, 6-4,6-3 Wednesday to become the youngest men’s semifinalist sinceSampras during his title run in 1990. Sampras was also 19 at thetime, but five months younger.

With four tour titles this year and a victory over Sampras onthe grass at Queen’s Club just before Wimbledon, Hewitt is hardly asurprise to have gone this far at the open. Yet, he said he didn’tbelieve at the start that he had a real shot of winning his firstGrand Slam title.

“I didn’t come here to win it,” he said. “It would probablyhave been a bit stupid for me to come out and say, ‘I’m going towin the tournament’ when I haven’t made the quarterfinals of aGrand Slam going into this event.

“That’s not really realistic coming here and saying I’m goingto knock off Agassi, Sampras, Krajicek, whoever, win thistournament (against) all these great champions who have been inthat situation before. I definitely gave myself a chance of makingthe second week, being seeded here, knowing that these courts dosuit my game, with the humidity and the conditions. But it reallyhas been a bonus to make it through to the semifinals now.”