"Lindsay Davenport"

Lindsay Ann Davenport (born June 8, 1976 in Palos Verdes, California) is a former World No. 1 American professional tennis player. She has won three Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal in singles. In 2005, TENNIS Magazine ranked her as the 29th-best player of the preceding forty years. She is one of only four women (the others are Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, and Chris Evert) since 1975 who has been the year-end world no. 1 at least four times. Davenport finished 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005 as the top-ranked player.

Davenport is the daughter of Wink Davenport, who was a member of the U.S. volleyball team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Ann Davenport. She attended both Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Peninsula, California and Murrieta Valley High School in Murrieta, California.

Davenport married Morgan Stanley investment banker and former University of Southern California All-American tennis player, Jonathan Leach, in 2003. Davenport took a break from competitive tennis in late 2006 and much of 2007 to have a baby. On June 10, 2007, she gave birth to a son, Jagger Jonathan, in Newport Beach, California. She gave birth to a daughter, Lauren Andrus, on June 27, 2009 in Newport Beach, California. She currently owns a home in the Irvine, California neighborhood of Shady Canyon and also in Laguna Beach, California. She gave birth to her third child, daughter Kaya Emory, on January 16, 2012.

Davenport's game is built largely around her groundstrokes, including her two-handed backhand, and serve, which she hits with excellent placement and at its best was called "rock solid". Her lack of court speed and mobility was her greatest weakness until she overhauled her conditioning program and lost 30 pounds beginning in 1995, and became mentally stronger. A thirteen-time grand slam finalist in doubles, Davenport did not feel comfortable playing at the net in singles until her increased speed allowed her to approach the net and volley more quickly.


Davenport started 1998 by reaching the singles semifinals of the Australian Open, which was her second consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinal. At the tournament in Tokyo, Davenport, ranked second, defeated Martina Hingis, ranked first, in the final. Davenport then lost in the Indian Wells, California, final to Hingis, after defeating Steffi Graf, and in the Miami, she fell in the quarterfinals to Anna Kournikova. At the French Open, Davenport defeated defending champion Iva Majoli in the quarterfinals, before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals. Davenport won titles in San Diego, Stanford, and Los Angeles.

Davenport's next victory on tour was her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1998 US Open, defeating fifth-ranked Venus Williams in the semifinals and top-ranked Hingis in the final.

Davenport then won Zürich and lost to 17th-ranked Graf in Philadelphia despite attaining the no. 1 ranking. Davenport finished the year with a loss to Hingis in the final of the Chase Championships .

In doubles, Davenport reached the final of the 1998 Australian Open with Natasha Zvereva, where they lost to the wildcard team of Hingis and Mirjana Lučić. Davenport and Zvereva lost to Hingis and Lučić again in the Tokyo final, and then won both Indian Wells and Berlin, both times defeating Alexandra Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat in the final.

Davenport and Zvereva then lost to Hingis and Jana Novotná in the French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open doubles finals. Davenport won San Diego and Stanford with Zvereva and lost in the US Open doubles final. Davenport won Filderstadt, and then the year-end doubles championship with Zvereva, defeating Fusai and Tauziat in three sets. In 1998, Davenport reached all four Grand Slam doubles finals with Zvereva, losing to teams that included Hingis all four times.

Davenport was at least a quarterfinalist in all seventeen of her singles events. She won seven singles titles, with victories in Tokyo, Scottsdale, Eastbourne, Los Angeles, Filderstadt, Zürich, and Linz. She lost in the final of the year-end Chase Championships. She was a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open, a semifinalist at Wimbledon, and a quarterfinalist at the US Open. She lost in the Australian Open doubles final with Morariu to Venus and Serena Williams. She teamed with Lisa Raymond to win the doubles titles in Filderstadt and Zürich.

Davenport won a tour-high seven titles, including four straight during the summer (Stanford, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Cincinnati). She also had the most match wins on the WTA Tour, with 63. She finished the year ranked first for the third time in her career. She defeated Venus and Serena Williams for the first time since 2000, which she said instilled belief in her that she could win more Grand Slam tournaments.

Davenport's success continued into 2005, when she reached her first Grand Slam final, at the Australian Open, since the 2000 US Open; she fell to Serena Williams in three sets.

At the tournament in Indian Wells, California, in March, Davenport made history by defeating world no. 3 Maria Sharapova, 6–0, 6–0. It marked the first time that a player ranked in the top 3 had ever been "shut out" on the WTA tour and was the first time Sharapova had failed to win a game during a match.

In April, she won the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island, Florida for the third time, defeating Silvia Farina Elia in the final. In the quarterfinals of that tournament, Davenport defeated Venus Williams for the fourth consecutive time.

Davenport bypassed the European clay-court season and went to the French Open without having played a professional competitive match for weeks. She confounded expectations with a run to the quarterfinals on her least favourite surface, including a come-from-behind victory over Kim Clijsters in the fourth round. Davenport lost to eventual runner-up Mary Pierce.

At Wimbledon, Davenport was the top seed and made it easily to the fourth round, where she was tested again by Clijsters, but came through in three sets to win her second successive match against the Belgian. Davenport then reached the semifinals, where her match against Amélie Mauresmo was interrupted by rain and was completed over the course of two days. Davenport eventually defeated Mauresmo and faced 14th-seeded Venus Williams in an all-American final. Davenport led most of the way, as she served for the match at 6–5 in the second set, and had a match point at 5–4 in the third set. Williams went on to win, 4–6, 7–6, 9–7, in the longest (in terms of time) Wimbledon final in history. In that match, Davenport sustained a serious back injury while leading 4–2 (40–15) in the final set, although she acknowledged after the match that the injury did not cause her defeat and that Williams was the superior mentally strong player on the day. The injury forced Davenport to withdraw from Fed Cup competition. She returned to the tour at the Stanford tournament. After reinjuring her back in a warmup just hours before her match, Davenport retired while trailing 0–5 in the first set. This back injury then forced her to withdraw from other hard-court events in San Diego and Los Angeles.



Davenport returned to the WTA Tour in August, winning her comeback tournament in New Haven without dropping a set. Davenport then reached the quarterfinals of the US Open, where she held a match point on Elena Dementieva, before falling in the third set tie-break. Davenport briefly lost the no. 1 ranking following the event.

After the loss at the US Open, Davenport captured the title in Bali without dropping a set, and subsequently qualified for the WTA Tour Championships. She then won the title in Filderstadt, defeating Mauresmo in the final for the second consecutive year. The win made her only the tenth woman ever to win 50 career WTA singles titles.

In Zürich, Davenport saved two match points while defeating Daniela Hantuchová. The win assured Davenport of recapturing the world no. 1 ranking from Sharapova the following week. In the final, Davenport defeated sixth seeded Patty Schnyder for her fourth title in Zürich and her sixth title of 2005, second only to Clijsters's nine. It was also the first time Davenport had saved match points en route to a victory since the 1999 U.S. Open. The Zürich title left her with eleven Tier I titles, second among active players.

Davenport was a semifinalist at the WTA tour year-end championships (losing to Pierce in two tie-breaks), which ensured that she finished the year ranked no. 1. 2005 was the fourth time that Davenport ended the year ranked no. 1, joining Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, and Chris Evert as the only female players to end a year ranked first at least four times.

In 2005, TENNIS Magazine ranked Davenport 29th in its list of the 40 greatest players of the tennis era.

Davenport announced her intention to play in the 2009 Australian Open in January, ending speculation that she would be retiring from the sport. However, she withdrew from the event when she learned that she was expecting her second child. It was announced on June 30, 2009 that Davenport had given birth to a baby girl.

In her first tournament since the 2008 US Open, Davenport played mixed doubles at Wimbledon with Bob Bryan, where they received a wild card. They made it to the second round before falling to Daniel Nestor and Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Davenport also announced her intention to play doubles at two tournaments in the American hard-court season. The first tournament was the women's doubles event at the 2010 Bank of the West Classic, where she won the title partnering Liezel Huber. She followed this with the 2010 Mercury Insurance Open, again with Huber. They lost in the quarterfinals to Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Yan Zi.

Martina Hingis announced that the two were considering a future doubles partnership.

At the 2011 French Open she won the 2011 French Open – Women's Legends Doubles event with partner Martina Hingis. Davenport went on to win the 2011 Wimbledon – Women's Legends Doubles, partnering once again with Hingis. World Team Tennis announced that Davenport would not be able to compete for the season because she was pregnant with her third child.

source : http://en.wikipedia.org