Williams not quite back to her best

For virtually the whole of last year women's tennis at grand slam level was in a state of flux, the one constant being the steady rise of the Russians who between them won three of the four slam titles.

This lack of individual continuity or dominance was reflected at the beginning of the Australian Open. The two top seeds were California's Lindsay Davenport, who had not won a major title for five years, and was teetering on the brink of retirement, and Amelie Mauresmo of France, who had never won a slam, and appeared in her one and only final here six years ago.

At least Davenport fulfilled her seeding, yet throughout the fortnight, including much of the final, she gave the impression of wanting to be anywhere else but on a tennis court.

It would have been better for the tournament by far if she had lost to Australia's Alicia Molik in the quarter-finals, which she might have done but for one of the many indifferent line calls throughout this fortnight.

Rightly or wrongly, it seems inevitable that technology will be called upon to arbitrate over controversial calls in the near future, although the current system remains imperfect, principally because more cameras are needed to track the flight of the ball, and that is costly.

Nevertheless, Paul McNamee, the Australian Open chief executive, believes a system will be in use, presumably on the show courts alone, by next year.

"I think it should be used for point-ending challenges, otherwise you would have machines calling the lines and that is not where the sport wants to go."

Two systems, Hawkeye and Auto-Ref, are being tested by the ITF. Whether tennis will therefore become a better game is arguable.

Just as "feeling under the weather" signifies a general personal malaise, so "feeling under the roof" might be best used as a description of Saturday's mediocre final, won by Serena Williams 2-6, 6-3, 6-0.

On this occasion it was not the heat, but the rain, that caused organisers to close the roof and turn this into an indoor final, as happened two years ago when Serena beat her sister, Venus. Another technological triumph, but it ruins the atmosphere.

Davenport raced through the opening set on Saturday and looked set for victory as Williams struggled with a back injury.

But after getting treatment on and off court, Williams launched a superb fightback to win in 89 minutes as Davenport's game went to pieces.

Williams revealed she picked up the injury on the last point of the first game. "Lindsay had me on the run and my back went out, I'm not as young as I used to be," said the 23-year-old. "Eventually, I was able to come back, thank goodness."

The 2003 champion admitted the fifth game of the second set, when she saved six break points, was key to the outcome. "I kept thinking 'I am not losing this game'. My arm was hurting because I was serving so much, but I didn't care if my arm fell off, I was not losing that game."

Confronted by questions concerning her commitment to the sport she dominated in 2002-2003, winning five of the eight slam titles over those two years, including four in succession, Serena only spasmodically approached the level of her best tennis at Melbourne, most noticeably against Russia's Maria Sharapova in the semi-finals.

And yet she was still good enough to beat three of the top four seeds in succession, and reclaim the title she won two years ago, the culmination of the so-called "Serena Slam".

The WTA, the women's ruling body, who have only recently landed an $88 million (€127 million) global sponsorship with Sony Ericsson, continue to stress the "strength in depth" of their game, but there were many times over the last fortnight when it looked more like a levelling off.

Guardian Service