The big buzz after Serena Williams' victory over Lindsay Davenport in the Australian Open singles final yesterday was the winner's gallant fight to save six break points in the fifth game of the second set.
Davenport, making her first appearance in a Grand Slam since losing the US Open championship to Venus Williams in 2000, believes the more pivotal one came three games later, one she calls her "horrible lapse."
Up 40-0, she let Williams fight back to deuce, then double-faulted on break point to give Williams the game. Williams went on to win the next seven games -- part of a streak of nine in a row -- to win the match 2-6, 6-3, 6-0, her first Grand Slam singles victory since Wimbledon in 2003.
"I felt like I was in control pretty much of the match, moving the ball around well," said Davenport. "Then I had that horrible lapse. I made a few quick errors, and kind of opened the door for her."
Davenport raced to a 4-0 lead in the opening set, then 4-1 before Williams, affected by a back strain, went off-court for treatment. When she returned, she was a new woman, clearly improved by the manipulation on her back by a WTA Tour trainer.
"She raised her game," said Davenport. "She started serving really well and hard."
At 2-2 in the second set, Davenport did everything she could to break Williams' serve.
"If I had broken there, it would have been a good chance," said Davenport. "But I felt I did a lot of things right on the points. She came up with some good shots and that was a good, tough game."
Williams' play became so dominant that Davenport admits the match was gone midway through the third set.
"I think mid- to late, the latter part of it, she was definitely picking up her game," Davenport said of the decider. "I felt like I was having some trouble moving near the end and definitely just lost some of the power on my shots."
Davenport, who won the last of her three Grand Slam titles here in 2000, won only eight points in the third set.
"She is a very good front-runner," added Davenport. "Once she grabbed the second set, she just kept going."
It ended an eventful few weeks Down Under for Davenport. She withdrew from the Hopman Cup in early January to give an injured knee more time to heal, then pulled out of the Sydney International with bronchitis.
On Friday, she and Corina Morariu, who lost to the Williams sisters in the doubles championship here in 2001, were beaten again in the final by Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alicia Molik.
It was an emotional return for Morariu, who fought off leukemia in the months after her doubles loss in 2001. Davenport cried on court at the trophy presentations Friday, saying she never thought that Morariu would survive the disease, let alone play again with her for a Grand Slam title.
When she appeared at a trophy presentation as runner-up for the second day in a row, yesterday, she waved goodbye to the crowd and said "I hope to be back next year."
Davenport, who said last year she would retire at the end of the 2004 season, changed her mind and later regained the No. 1 ranking.
She said she's still uncertain of her plans for 2006.
"I haven't gone there yet," said Davenport. "You never know what's going to happen in a year. I hope I'm back. I know that I'm healthy and feel like I have a chance to win. In that regard, I do hope I'll be back."
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