Tennis: Airport row fails to faze top seed
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Your support makes all the difference.LINDSAY DAVENPORT was in typically dominant form yesterday as she coasted into the fourth round of the Australian Open with a 6-0, 6- 4 win over the Slovakian Karina Habsudova.
The American world No 1 sped away with the first set in under 20 minutes. Afterwards she revealed she nearly did not even make it to Melbourne.
Davenport had to argue with airline staff to be allowed to take her racquets on a flight to Melbourne last week because no one recognised her. She had asked a Qantas airline employee why her closest rival had been able to board her flight with racquets in hand.
"Well, Martina Hingis needs her racquet," the airline employee said. Alex Corretja suffered the same indignity.
"The lady said, `Your racquets are too big. You can't take them on the flight'," Davenport said, recounting what her strangest experience since becoming the world No 1 last year.
"She didn't know who Corretja and I were, and I'm saying `hey'. We got into the biggest fight with the lady. We almost got a fine or something." In the end, Davenport and Corretja smuggled their racquets on board. "But it wasn't easy," she said.
A half-hour rain delay yesterday, during which time the centre court roof was closed, seemed to settle Habsudova for the second set and she held her first four service games. But then Davenport made the key break to go 5-4 up and wrapped up the match with some big forehand winners and an unbeatable smash on match point.
The only other seeds left in Davenport's half of the draw are 11th-seeded Belgian Domin-ique van Roost and fifth- seeded American Venus Williams, whom she might face in the quarter-finals.
Thomas Enqvist knocked out Pat Rafter 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 with a fearsome display of serving and pressure tennis which serve-and-volley king Rafter was not able to answer.
"That's just the way it goes," Rafter said. "He played too big and too strong for me. There's a lot of top 10 players out there who aren't in the top 10. Unfortunately, it's not women's tennis."
The Swede's win guarantees that Pete Sampras will remain world No 1 for at least a few more weeks. Sampras pulled out of the tournament because he was too exhausted after defending his ranking last year and Rafter had been the only player left in the men's draw able to knock him off his pedestal.
Rafter's repeated attempts to get up to the net were foiled by blistering forehand and backhand winners from Enqvist, who managed to keep the popular Australian pinned to the baseline.
The Wimbledon champion and world No 3, Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic, was another high-profile departure, falling 6-3, 6-0 to Maria Antonia Sanchez Lorenzo in an uncharacteristically docile display that handed the Spaniard by far the biggest win of her career.
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