NEW YORK - Former champion Lindsay Davenport said she would need to come up with something special to beat second seed Justine Henin-Hardenne in the quarterfinals of the US Open tennis championships tomorrow.
The 10th-seeded American powered past Swiss seventh seed Patty Schnyder 6-4 6-4 today to reach the last eight for the 10th successive year.
But Davenport has lost her last seven matches against Henin-Hardenne and the Belgian looked in superb form as she romped past Shahar Peer 6-0 6-1 today.
"She's been a very, very tough opponent for me the last few years," Davenport said.
"She plays really well. She is obviously unbelievable at offence. But at the same (time), she's so quick and digs out a lot of balls.
"For me it's a hard mix because if I don't hit the ball deep she'll take advantage and if I do she gets a lot of balls back in play that I have to be ready to come back.
"I haven't necessarily sat down with a game plan yet to go into it, but I'm hopefully going to have to think of something a little different than I've done. I'm not going to outrun her."
Davenport was rarely troubled by Schnyder even though she was a break down in the first set before finishing it off with an ace.
The critical break of the second set came in the ninth game and Davenport then served out to win in 77 minutes.
"I felt for long periods of the match I could challenge her," Schnyder said.
"It was just a couple of points that went the other way. She's just a champion."
Davenport, 30, missed almost five months with a back injury this year and then retired nine days ago during the final of the New Haven tournament against Henin-Hardenne with a shoulder injury while trailing 6-0 1-0.
But having scrambled past Katarina Srebotnik, of Slovenia, in the previous round, she was much more confident against Schnyder as she beat the Swiss for the 10th time in 12 meetings.
"I'm ecstatic that I've gotten to this point," she said.
"I promise you if someone had asked me at Wimbledon, I would have laughed that I would even be able to play here.
"So it's been amazing. I know people always expect a certain level from players but, when you have the four months that I had, it certainly wasn't in my mind that I would be in at least the quarterfinals at the US Open again."
- REUTERS
Tennis: Davenport targets Henin-Hardenne upset
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