QUÉBEC CITY, Canada - After taking some time off of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour to have her first child, Lindsay Davenport made a much-welcomed return to action last month in Asia, winning her comeback event in Bali and reaching the semifinals in Beijing. Now one of the all-time greats plays the third event of her comeback up in Québec City, Canada, and brings us - and son Jagger - all along for the ride in this week's player blog.
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Sunday, November 4, 2007
This is my last entry... you guys are probably sick of hearing from me!
I leave Québec winning the tournament. It was a little bittersweet as poor Julia hurt her ankle badly yesterday in her semifinal, and it was obviously bothering her. I saw her in the training room before and it was so swollen and purple. I was surprised she even took the court. Nevertheless I am thrilled to be leaving the winner. I look forward to spending time again at home with the whole family. Actually, we are off to Hawaii for Thanksgiving; we're taking Jagger to the site where we got married, so that will be really cool. It will be so nice to spend time together where neither Jon nor I are working. Then it's time to get ready to go down under to start the season... I look forward to being in touch again in 2008!
Take care and thanks for reading!
Lindsay
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Saturday, November 3, 2007
Hello again everyone,
So I'm very excited to be in the final here in Québec. I won a tough three set match against Vera Zvonereva today. I thought it was a great match for me to win. I played a really good first set and that's what I wanted to do. Vera is known for getting very frustrated and down on herself, so I wanted to get a good lead. Unfortunately I had some break points early on in the second set that I didn't capitalize on, and she took advantage. I got it back to a tie-break but she served really well in the breaker. I started off the third with a good hold and that gave me some confidence. I only broke her once in the third (to go up 3-1) but that was enough. I served a good third set and that carried me through. Tomorrow I'm up against Vakulenko, who also won a tough three-setter today. I have never played her before but it looks like she hits pretty hard.
Jon made it in this morning so it's nice to have my family here. He hadn't seen me play singles since my comeback, so I think he was happy. He was so excited to see Jagger and he got to witness him rolling over with his own eyes.
We couldn't get on any flights leaving Québec on Monday. I have never had such a hard time trying to leave a tournament! That's actually a tough part of this job. I handle all of our travel arrangements and now I travel with a lot more people and a baby, so it's definitely more complicated. We're flying to Toronto after the match, then going to stay at an airport hotel, and then catch a flight home on Monday from Toronto. It won't be easy with Jagger, but we will make it work.
I'm off to bed... talk to you all tomorrow!
Lindsay
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Friday, November 2, 2007
I had another good day at the courts today. I played Foretz, who I had never played before. I started off well to go up 4-0, but I lost my concentration a little bit and found myself at 5-4. Luckily, I got my act together and played well from that point on. Tomorrow in the semis I face Vera Zvonereva, who I think is a great player. I'm really excited to be playing a player of her level - it's a great way to see where I'm at, and really the reason I came back was to play the best, enjoy the process and try and win.
Jon just told me he is getting on the red-eye to be here in the morning, so I'm beyond excited. Personally, I think it's mainly to see his son, but that's cool - I'll take him being here any way I can get him! The trip has been longer than we had originally anticipated; we left California early because of the fires, so we're all missing each other. Win or lose, we'll have some great days together.
I'm off to bed... I'm going to get woken up early by either my hungry son or my husband coming in. Be back tomorrow...
Lindsay
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Thursday, November 1, 2007
Today was a good day for the tennis. I was happy to be back on the match court after a day off, and I felt like I started off much better and more confidently than I did on Tuesday night. I thought Wozniak hit the ball well; I was just able to get her on the run before she was able to do that to me. She seemed a bit nervous; it is always tough to play in front of your home crowd, especially at the start of your career. Tomorrow, I've got another night match. My opponents are playing now, so I'm not sure who I'm going to play. I try to focus more on what I need to do well rather than on my opponent's game, but I always like to know what I'm up against. I actually don't mind playing the night matches. It gives me all day to kind of relax and hang with Jagger. He slept until 7:15 this morning so I was ecstatic. We went out to breakfast and took a walk this morning, but other than that we just hung in the room.
So far my comeback has been really focused more on getting my body back used to playing, and also trying to figure out all the changes that have occurred since Jagger. In the off-season, Adam and I are looking forward to working on a few specific things in my game and testing new racquets and new types of string. I have played with my Wilson racquets since 1995 and I love them; but something tells me technology has probably changed a lot in the last 12 years, so I'm going to test the water there with some new Wilson frames.
The longer I keep playing, the more I realize that most of my good friends have retired! I'm lucky to have made so many great friends in this sport. Last week the fires in California were horrible. One was actually just a couple of miles from our house, which caused us some major concern and sleepless nights. The air quality was so bad that we were told not to go outside. So I called my good friend Mary Joe Fernandez (a former great player) and Jagger and I took off to Cleveland and stayed with her and her family for the week (her husband is also my longtime agent). It was a great place to practice before coming to Québec, but it was also amazing to see us all these years later with our own children. We laughed that it was 11 years ago we won the French Open together.
The tennis year is almost over so I'm trying hard to end it on a good note. It's hard to explain, but I've really enjoyed competing since coming back; I've been looking forward to playing the matches. Jagger and I are missing Jon terribly, so we're excited to go home whenever I'm done here. I send him tons of pictures of Jagger every day from my phone so that he can see how much his boy keeps growing. I'm trying hard to convince him to come here if I keep winning.
Jagger left right after my match to go to bed. It's hard for me because I put him to sleep every night but unfortunately it's just not possible when I play at night. So I look forward to him waking me up early to hang out!
Good night,
Lindsay
