| | Associated Press
Results
ROME -- An awkward move during practice, a sudden wrenching
pain in the lower back, and No. 1-ranked Lindsay Davenport joined
the growing list of top women tennis players with injuries heading
into the French Open.
The 23-year-old American pulled out of the Italian Open before
the third round Thursday after suffering what tournament officials
called an acute low-back strain while hitting a forehand during a
morning warm-up.
|  | | Lindsay Davenport had been due to play in a clay-court tournament in Madrid next week. |
"My back just locked up on me. And I went to see the trainer
and it's just, you know, really, really sore right now," said
Davenport, grimacing and walking stiffly a few hours later.
Davenport said she hoped to be OK in time for the clay court
Grand Slam event that opens in Paris in just over a week, but that
it was too soon to be certain.
Later, the tournament lost its defending champion when
third-seeded Venus Williams was beaten by 17-year-old Australian
Jelena Dokic 6-1, 6-2.
It was Williams' fourth match back from a six-month layoff from
tendinitis in her wrists. Consoled by her mother, Williams could be
seen crying briefly after the loss.
Third-round play saw second-seeded Nathalie Tauziat and
fifth-seeded Monica Seles advance to the quarterfinals of the
clay-court tournament. Tauziat squeaked by Magdalena Grzybowska
6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (4), and Seles beat Anne Gaelle Sidot of France 3-6,
6-1, 6-1.
Among the losers were fourth-seeded Mary Pierce, falling to No.
12 Amelie Mauresmo 6-3, 6-4, and seventh-seeded Julie Halard
Decugis, downed 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 by Fabiola Zuluaga.
Davenport was making her debut at Foro Italico and her first
appearance since April after winning the Australian Open in January
and Wimbledon last year.
Thursday's back trouble was her first in about five years, she
said.
"I haven't had a problem with it. It came on totally by
surprise," she said.
With that "intense, sharp pain," injuries made a clean sweep
of the three top players -- Davenport, Martina Hingis and Conchita
Martinez.
Hingis and Martinez both skipped the Italian Open after hurting
themselves in the German Open. Anna Kournikova tore an ankle
ligament in the same tournament and skipped Rome as well.
Serena Williams went on the sick list a month ago with a bad
knee.
The spate of twists, sprains and wrenches devastated the field
for the $1.08 million Italian Open, a warm-up for the French Open
that starts May 29.
"You want your best players in that tournament. You want them
in every tournament," said Chris De Maria, spokesman for the Sanex
WTA Tour. "It's the normal bumps and bruises -- only Kournikova
looks like it may be serious."
The competition-crippling injuries add to a spring season that
saw the German Open's tournament director blast the WTA and
marketing company IMG for the paltry field of top players.
"A field like this year can't happen again," Eberhard Wensky
said Sunday.
None of the five injured have taken their names off the list for
the French Open. All hope to make it, and make clear they don't
plan on any preliminary tournament play that jeopardizes that.
"I just hope that it gets better in time for Paris," said
Davenport, who planned to stay in Rome for what she hoped would be
brief treatment. "Hopefully in the next few days it will loosen
up, I'll be able to start practicing and begin my preparations for
Paris next week."
Davenport had been slated to play Italy's Giulia Casoni, who
advanced to the quarterfinals.
Spain's Arantxa Sanchez Vicario rolled 6-1, 6-4 over Denisa
Chladkova of the Czech Republic. It was the second win in 14 hours
for Sanchez Vicario, seeded sixth, who played a night match
Wednesday.
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