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2001 Australian Open: The Final Four

© Michael Cecilio

The draw has been whittled down from 128 players to just four competitors at the time of writing. Certainly the four competitors left in this year’s Australian Open women’s draw are very familiar with the pressures of playing in Grand Slam semi finals. #1 seed Martina Hingis, #2 seed Lindsay Davenport, #3 seed Venus Williams and #12 seed Jennifer Capriati have attained outpowered, outwitted and outplayed their opponents in order to attain yet another lofty showing at a Grand Slam tournament.

While the Martina/Venus match promises to be a really tough, entertaining and heart-stopping encounter, Lindsay is expected by many to be the favourite against Jennifer. In my opinion, I would give Lindsay the title as favourite in this match but certainly only a slight favourite. Jennifer has been hitting the ball as cleanly and as confidently as I’ve seen her strike the ball in all the time she has played tennis and has the talent to pull off the upset. Whether she can string enough hard-hitting shots to outmuscle the even more powerful Lindsay Davenport is another question. Against Monica Seles in the quarter finals, Jennifer came up with some good serves and some heavy duty winners at the right times in order to pressure her fellow American into making the errors or going for too much. She will be aiming for even better form against Lindsay against whom she will have to stay closely with in order to prevent Lindsay’s confidence from building – a very dangerous situation should that be the case.

Lindsay has worked her way into form from the first round up to the semi finals. She has had the tougher opening round matches than the other semi finalists but the draw has essentially worked into her favour in the latter stages of the tournament as she has not drawn either of the Williams sisters nor Mauresmo on her side of the draw. It has allowed her to gain her confidence gradually. She pulled off a solid three set win over Jelena Dokic but hardly looked in contention for the championship on that type of indifferent form. Come the 3rd round and beyond, Lindsay looked to be in her element with some routine wins over Kim Clijsters and Anna Kournikova, serving extremely well and hitting the ball solidly – perhaps not as confidently as she was striking the ball last year but efficiently nonetheless.

If you want to pick a favourite on form alone, Martina Hingis would be the overwhelming favourite. She has not lost a singles match since losing to Davenport in Philadelphia last year, and has accrued titles at the Chase Championships, Hopman Cup and adidas International to build up a 17 match winning streak. She has been extremely confident with her game and more importantly, she has been playing the power players in the same vein. Since the end of last year, there has been a noticeable improvement in Martina’s fitness as she looks fitter and faster than the previous season and this has helped her against the hard-hitters. What has also helped is her attitude to be more proactive and to be more aggressive and it helped in her amazing win over Serena Williams in the quarter finals 6-2 3-6 8-6. It should be a huge confidence booster for her next match against Venus Williams, but Martina will be very wary of her opponent – she has never beaten both Williams sisters in the same tournament and it is one tall order that she will face in a Grand Slam semi final. Martina is also as determined as ever to add another Grand Slam title to her collection in order to prove her superiority in the #1 position, her last Slam title coming two years ago at this very tournament.

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