Davenport, Kuznetsova advance on rainy day
By the time Lindsay Davenport got on the court after a long, rainy day at the U.S. Open, there were only about 100 fans in the stands.
Some of those folks were wandering around, too, and that caused her more trouble than Shinobu Asagoe.
“They just kind of kept coming right when I was in the line of my toss,” she said. “I just asked if they could maybe bring some more ushers out, even if there weren’t that many people.”
Davenport overwhelmed Asagoe 6-1, 6-1 Wednesday night to reach the semifinals. She’ll face No. 9 Svetlana Kuznetsova, who defeated No. 14 Nadia Petrova 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Davenport and Kuznetsova were lucky — they got to finish.
The glamour match of the tournament so far, two-time Open champion Andre Agassi vs. No. 1 Roger Federer, was suspended because of showers. Federer led 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, and the match was scheduled to resume Thursday afternoon, provided more rain does not interfere.
Rain prevented the start of play again Thursday with two doubles matches scheduled before Federer and Agassi were to return to the court. Also on the day schedule was the quarterfinal between No. 4 Lleyton Hewitt and unseeded Tommy Haas. The quarterfinal between second-seeded Andy Roddick and No. 28 Joachim Johansson was set for Thursday night.
Arthur Ashe Stadium was about one-third full for Agassi-Federer. In another men’s quarterfinal, No. 5 Tim Henman led No. 22 Dominik Hrbaty 6-1, 7-5, 4-5 when it was suspended — about a dozen fans were there for the warmup.
Davenport got to the National Tennis Center around 9 a.m., about two hours before she was scheduled to play at Ashe. But with no chance to get started in the steady rain, she passed the time trying to sleep, doing crossword puzzles, visiting with her family and eating.
“It’s not a total shock to tennis players that we have to go through this,” she said. “At this point, I just didn’t care if there were 100 people there or 10 people, I just wanted to play.”
Davenport wound up starting at 9,645-seat Louis Armstrong Stadium at 7:29 p.m. By then, organizers had shifted the schedule so that all four matches could be played at the same time.
Only two dozen fans headed over to outer Court 11 for the start of the quarterfinal between Kuznetsova and Petrova. It was so empty that when Petrova slapped the strings of her racket after a missed shot, it sounded like a violin — it was that easy to hear.
Stan Kasten, the former president of the Atlanta Braves, Hawks and Thrashers, was among those watching.
“It’s like when you go scout a kid at a high school game or in the summer leagues, there aren’t a whole lot of people there,” he said.
“It’s an interesting environment to see a match that means so much.”
The match was originally supposed to be played at Armstrong. Instead, the setting looked more like a recreation league tournament, and that was fine by Kuznetsova.
“It was important for me to play on a small court so I don’t get nervous,” she said. “I played (Nicole) Pratt, second round, on this court. Now, I play in the quarterfinals on the same court. It’s weird.”
The other women’s semifinal will also be United States vs. Russia: No. 8 Jennifer Capriati takes on No. 6 Elena Dementieva in the other matchup.
Davenport has won 22 matches in a row since losing to Maria Sharapova in the semifinals at Wimbledon. She’s already won three Grand Slam championships, including the 1998 Open.
“I’m in a great position. I’ve done everything that I could possibly do to be ready to play here and do well,” she said, “and now you just see what happens.”
Agassi got off to a slow start, and had trouble handling Federer’s serve in the first set. But Agassi came back to win 12 of 13 points early in the second set for a 3-0 lead and went on to close it out, drawing a standing ovation.