Serena Williams had lost the first four games and was in pain, wincing on almost every swing. Her shots lacked their usual zing.
Her hopes for a seventh Grand Slam appeared to be doomed.
Then, with a little help from the trainer, the woman who calls herself the toughest fighter in tennis started getting her power back. It proved too much for top-ranked Lindsay Davenport, as Williams rallied for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory in the Australian Open final on Saturday that stretched her winning streak here to 14 matches.
In Sunday’s men’s final — the first-ever here at night — third-seeded Lleyton Hewitt will face number four Marat Safin, who is in his third final in four years at Melbourne Park but has yet to win one. The Russian ended Roger Federer’s 26-match winning streak in the semifinals, while Hewitt beat second-ranked Andy Roddick.
Seeded only seventh, Williams was still the bookies’ favorite against Davenport, who had struggled at times and was tired after reaching the women’s doubles final, too.
The match was little over a minute old and Davenport had Williams running from side to side.
”I reached for a backhand and I think it tweaked my back out, one of my ribs out,” said Williams, who will jump to number two when the new rankings come out.
”For a split-second,” she thought she might have been hit by another in the string of injuries that sent her tumbling out of the sport.
”I said: ‘This is not happening again,”’ Williams recalled.
Refusing to give up — she fended off three match points in her semifinal win over Maria Sharapova on Thursday — she tried to play through the pain.
”I never, ever think that I have to give up, in the most dire situations,” Williams said. Still, ”For the next few games I was completely out of it. I had to adjust.”
She realised that she couldn’t do it on her own.
”I finally decided, ”OK, why don’t you call for the trainer and see if she can put it back in place?’ She did, and everything worked out,” Williams said.
Well, it wasn’t quite that simple.
Although Williams started to loosen up, Davenport went on to win the first set. The turning point came as Williams served at 2-2 in the second. Appearing twice to be on the verge of smashing her racket, she fended off six break points to hold.
”I was serving so many balls my arm was hurting,” Williams recalled. ”I kept thinking ‘I’m not losing this game — I don’t care if my arm falls off.”’
A tiebreaker loomed as Davenport served at 3-4, 40-0. Two double-faults and a couple of other errors later, and it was 5-3.
Davenport never had another chance, losing the last nine games and winning only eight points in the third set.
”I felt like I was playing well and in control pretty much of the match,” Davenport said. ”Then I just had that horrible lapse … and opened up the door for her. She just kept going through it.
”At the end I think I was a little bit fatigued. But she took advantage of it and kept going — she’s a great front-runner when she gets going.”
Williams ended her 18-month Grand Slam drought — then started talking about landing her eighth major and regaining the number one spot that now is so close again. The French Open is next, and she pointed out that a victory there would provide a little symmetry — two titles in each of the four majors.
Williams won her first Australian Open when she beat her sister Venus in the final here two years ago — when the Williams sisters were at the top of women’s tennis — but couldn’t defend the title last year because of a knee injury.
Coming to grips with a series of injuries and the shooting death of her sister, Yetunde Price, in September 2003, had been hard enough, Williams said, without having to face persistent questions about ”What’s wrong with the Williams sisters?”
”There’s nothing wrong with us,” she said Saturday. ”We’re still players to beat.”
Williams said regaining the Australian title was the start of a resurgence: ”This gives me confidence.”
After Davenport’s backhand landed long on match point, Williams dropped to one knee and raised both arms in the air.
She held up her index finger, showing she’s number one, before walking over to her entourage in the crowd and slapping hands with her mother, Oracene, and Australian hitting partner Mark Hlawaty.
Steady morning rain forced the roof at Rod Laver Arena to be closed for the 10th all-American women’s final in the Australian Open.
In the men’s doubles championship, Zimbabwe’s Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett, seeded fifth, beat second-seeded US twins Bob and Mike Bryan 6-4, 6-4. In was the second Grand Slam title for Black and Ullyett, who won the 2001 US Open. The Bryans, who also lost last year’s final here, won the 2003 French Open and had seven titles last year. – Sapa-AP