Less is more for women's tennis: Davenport

Less is more for women's tennis: Davenport

Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Bali

With a clogged tournament schedule and players traveling to
distant points around the globe for their next competition, the
top ranks of women's tennis resembled a casualty list for much of
2005.

Jennifer Capriati has been out with shoulder problems, Venus
and Serena Williams have been on-again-off-again in their tour
commitments in the run-up to the U.S. Open and Lindsay Davenport
was out injured for two months after Wimbledon.

That was only this year; two of 2004's walking wounded,
Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne, returned to
the tour after their own prolonged health battles.

The latest victim is Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, who decided
to give up her defense of the Wismilak International in Bali this
week due to a back problem.

Davenport said on Tuesday that efforts must be made to make
the schedule more player friendly, taking into account the
physical demands on them and also the risk of burnout.

"I think it's too much, we have a really tough schedule," the
top seed at the US$225,000 tournament told The Jakarta Post. "The
tour wants us to play 11 months of the year and yet still stay
fit."

The American acknowledged that many "different entities" --
from the tour to sponsors and the ranking system itself -- were
involved in prodding the players to go the extra mile -- thereby
running the risk of injury.

Players today need to play from 17 to 18 tournaments a year to
defend their ranking points -- compared to about 12 in the early
1990s.

"I would hope so," Davenport said when asked if returning to
the old system of tournament commitments was the solution. "It
will make for a better product and for better tennis for the
fans."

The 29-year-old Californian, who spent a couple of hours on
photo calls and interviews at her hotel villa on Tuesday, noted
that she was the fittest she had ever been, but "I'm also getting
injured the most of my career".

Although her ranking slipped from first to second on Monday in
her recent see-saw battle for points with Russia's Maria
Sharapova, Davenport seemed unfazed.

"It's nice to be number one, but I've always felt that I
shouldn't worry too much about something that I couldn't control
-- you can't control what tournaments another player competes in.
Winning the Grand Slams was always more important to me."

After her Wimbledon semifinal loss to Sharapova in 2004,
Davenport hinted in her postmatch comments that she was leaning
to retirement.

Instead, she continued on -- "I realized I still wanted to
play --, reaching the Australian and Wimbledon finals, and
holding a matchpoint in the latter before losing to Venus
Williams in July.

Davenport said she was pleased with the year: "It would have
been nice to win Wimbledon, I would like to have done a couple of
things differently in the final, but she played the big points
well. She won it."

Married since 2003 to Jon Leach, Davenport said she was
feeling good about her career right now, but did not see her
following Andre Agassi's example by playing at the age of 35 or
the game's grand dame Martina Navratilova, who reached the U.S.
Open women's doubles semifinals last week a month before her 49th
birthday.

"It's the big question mark (retirement). I started really
young, and I will continue for a year or two more if I like it.
But a lot depends on how my body holds up."