Lindsay blows Clijsters off court

TENNIS: A light still glimmers in Lindsay Davenport. For all of the dark mutterings about the closing of her career, a flame still burns. Kim Clijsters, the serenely unaffected Belgian, felt the full force of Davenport's power game on Centre Court, while the rest of the draw witnessed the bald ferocity of her intentions.

Many who had watched her over the first week, and before that at the French Open, had difficulty believing the 29-year-old Californian could still generate such elemental power. That view became a myth over less than two hours, three sets and 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.

Against Clijsters, one of the most athletic and efficient returning engines on the circuit, the American had been expected to struggle gamely but honourably fail to impose her heavy serving, or activate her belting ground-stroke game to dominate the match.

Since Davenport last year spoke the word that strikes a kind of terror into most professional players, retirement, she has been subconsciously scratched from the list of credible Grand Slam winners and with her last Grand Slam win in Australia 2000, the prejudice of age had taken root. Her thoughts in 2000-2001 were of other players, notably the Williams sister "running me out of the game". Now all the talk is of revisionism.

The world number one wasted no time in introducing the nitro version of her game yesterday and immediately began to punch holes in Clijsters's efforts to contain it. While the younger player fetched and chased tirelessly, the ferocity of Davenport's serve and groundstrokes had her stretching just to keep in touch.

Davenport had dropped only eight games in her three previous matches and although Clijsters kept up an unerringly positive approach, her opponent seemed impervious to her work.

The first set fell 6-3, Davenport landing 80 per cent of her first serves and reaping the reward. Holding the momentum into the second set, Clijsters was again asked to perform miraculous returns, frequently performing the splits to get a racquet to the low, wide balls.

Finally her work was rewarded and after she survived one match point, the set drifted into a tiebreak, where most would have favoured the big server. But within the Davenport tempest, a chink appeared, and Clijsters turned a couple of big points to take the set 7-6.

For her work ethic and perseverance that was deserved and thoughts were of fatigue forcing Davenport to drop the tempo of her game. The doubters were again incorrect, an early service break and another for 5-2 giving the former champion an edge that she tenaciously held for the unlikely but deserved promotion to tournament favourite.

"I knew I needed to do that (serve well) and was able to go through a really long stretch without getting broken. Against a returner like Kim, that's all I could ask for," said Davenport.

"I thought I was hitting the ball well. I was going after shots, getting close to breaking her. I was able to come back in the third, calm down and play a little bit cleaner again after the third-set tiebreak. I was really ticked off about not winning the second set."

There was also something venomously efficient in the way Venus Williams set about opening up Jill Craybas. The 30-year-old American knocked out sister Serena on Saturday amid tears and frustration thus denying Wimbledon an all-Williams fourth-round tie. That alone illustrates how the rest of the draw has caught up, or how far the former world-beaters have fallen. The sisters used only meet in finals or semi-finals, not at the beginning of the second week.

At her thumping best, Williams dropped only one point on her serve in the first set on her way to a much-expected win. Serena would have gone in with the same positive thoughts, but where the younger sister faltered, the elder sister made good.

There were no adjustments, no service games squandered and few of the wild fluctuations we have come to accept. It might be the first flashes of a well-timed run to next weekend and with the Williamses, although she denied it in the press conference, it is always personal when family is involved.

The 6-0 first set was Williams in Grand Slam mode, thoroughly convincing and serving with power and, most important, consistency.

While Craybas managed more stubborn exchanges in the second set the 14th seed's grip had the match by the throat. All Craybas could do was rescue herself from embarrassment. Still, after 42 minutes the match was over, 6-0, 6-2.

Williams was joined by Amelie Mauresmo, Maria Sharapova, Mary Pierce, Nadia Petrova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anastasia Myskina in the quarter-finals, Myskina beating fellow Russian Elena Dementieva in three sets having dropped the first 1-6 and survived two match points before fighting back 7-6, 7-5.