Sport

Comeback ‘super-mom’ outlasts Errani

— Photo: AP

Good start: Former champion Lindsay Davenport defeated Sara Errani in the Australian Open women’s first round on Monday.

Melbourne: ‘Working mother’ is hardly a contradiction in terms in this day and age. But when you are a 31-year-old playing a sport where champions are often barely out of the cradle and your workplace happens to be a showcourt in a Grand Slam tennis championship with a seven-month-old toddler sharing your hotel room bed at night, things can get slightly complicated.

Or, so you would have thought, until you watched Linsday Davenport in her Grand Slam comeback, making it appear like a routine day at the office in the Australian Open championship on Monday.

On a windy afternoon in the Margaret Court Arena when she betrayed signs of nerves in her first major event in over a year, Davenport, champion here eight years ago, showed that motherhood has done no damage at all to her competitive mettle as she outlasted Sara Errani of Italy 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 in two hours and 19 minutes.

The victory earned Davenport her first shot at another Grand Slam winner since coming back to the tour late last year. She will play the fifth seed, Maria Sharapova — a 6-4, 6-3 first round winner over Jelena Kostanic Tosic of Croatia — in the second round.

If her form was scrappy today, then Davenport is obviously enjoying her life and her tennis more than ever before. Motherhood brings perspective. “Maybe the sign of the day came when my son woke up crying at 5 (a.m.) with a nightmare. I should have read more into that than I did,” she said in jest, amidst laughter, in the context of her struggle on court.

How far Davenport can go in her new avatar is anybody’s guess. But she will not be the first mother to do so if she manages to win another major title.

Australians Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley have done that in the past.

Then again, Davenport did manage to make history today as she became the all-time career prize money leader after her first round victory, surpassing Steffi Graf’s mark. Her career winnings now stand at $21,897,501.

“I never thought I would be in this arena again. So, coming back here has been a lot of fun. There was definitely a lot more nerves than I thought,” said the American.

After running away with the first set, Davenport, who is now 19-1 since returning to the game, struggled with her timing in the second and third sets. She had two matchpoints in the 10th game of the decider on Errani’s serve but failed to covert before closing out the match on her third matchpoint in the 12th game.

“You know, I think I have the greatest life in the world. I just feel fortunate that I am able to have him (her son Jagger) and do what I do still,” said tennis’ newest super-mom.

Earlier in the day, Jelena Jankovic, the only woman to have beaten Davenport on her return — the Serb also lost twice to the American — walked on thin ice in the first round contest against the Austrian Tamira Paszek.

The match featured a few breathtaking winners and an astonishing number of unforced errors — 66 for Jankovic and 59 for Paszek — and both players took injury time out in a bizarre third set before the Serbian third seed won 2-6, 6-2, 12-10.

Jankovic let go of three matchpoints in the 10th and 12th games and then, after a series of broken service games, held to 11-10 before wrapping up the match on the Austrian’s serve in the next game.

India’s Sania Mirza, who authored a fairy tale beginning to her Slam career here three years ago, will play Iroda Tulyaganova in the first round on Tuesday. The match is the second one scheduled on court No.6 where play begins at 5.30 a.m. IST.

Sania has also entered the mixed doubles event with Mahesh Bhupathi as her partner.

The Briton, Andy Murray, the ninth seed, was not quite as lucky. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga of France, one of the most dangerous unseeded players in the draw, found his all-or-nothing style of play particularly rewarding against a strangely wilted Murray. Tsonga charged the net like a frontline soldier and dictated points in an unremitting show of aggression to take a two-sets-to-love lead before the Briton stormed back to make a match of it.

While the Briton did have his chances in the fourth set, it was Tsonga who played the big points with tremendous confidence and skills to take the match 7-5, 6-4, 0-6, 7-6(5).

“I don’t think it is the end of the world. Worse things could have happened to me out there. It wasn’t that I feel I got completely outplayed,” said Murray, who made the fourth round here last year.

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