One quiet moment yesterday may have driven a bolt through Lindsay Davenport's chances of regaining the US Open title.
Halfway through the second set she was moving sideways to counter one of Elena Likhovtseva's many drives down the line, when she felt a stab of pain in her right knee. "It only happened once, but after that I thought I'd wait till the third set," the former champion said. Davenport let the second set go, broke early in the third, survived a break back, and went on to beat the Kazakhstan-born, Moscow-based, Las Vegas-married opponent 6-3,0-6,6-3. It was a risk that just about paid off. Against one of the front runners, it almost certainly would not have.
After a stop-go beginning to 2001 Davenport took 21/2 months to get the bothersome knee-bone right and reappeared at Eastbourne with an occasional limp and a small patch. She won the tournament, reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon and the English comeback appeared to augur better things. Instead doubts have returned.
Likhovtseva was close to capitalising on them. Her counter-hitting was often spirited and her forehand a deceptive weapon. She had also spotted her opponent's uncertainty, working over Davenport's usually formidable forehand to earn a break-back point in the final set at 3-4.
Had the underdog made it, she would have set up a character-testing climax. Instead the American found a forehand winner when she most needed it and escaped. She may find it harder to do so next time.
It has been a US Open crackling with atmosphere. According to Jennifer Capriati: "Something in the air feels different this year." There has been, she believes, a special voltage charging up the night matches. Capriati's feeling almost certainly has more to do with the fact that she was born in New York and that she and most of the crowd believe she can win the title.
Without this infusion the Australian and French Open champion might have had difficulty making the last 16. Capriati was down 2-4 in the first set and behind 1-4 in the second to Virginia Ruano Pascual, a Spaniard perhaps really only known for how efficiently she dumped Martina Hingis out of the first round of this year's Wimbledon.
Ruano Pascual is nevertheless one of the world's best women's doubles exponents. She is also a dashing if slightly lightweight singles player. She tried to move forward and make use of some sharp skills at the net against Capriati, and did a lot more damage than the 6-4, 6-4 scoreline indicated.
With only a few boos and small signs to mark the race controversy that dogged him for two days, Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the fourth round of the US Open with ease yesterday.
The fourth-seeded Australian defeated Spain's Albert Portas 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 48 minutes and will face Germany's Tommy Haas, the 16th seed, for a berth in the quarter-finals.
Applause mixed with a few boos greeted Hewitt as he walked onto the court to a capacity crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium, the same place where his remarks on Friday were taken as a race insult by black foe James Blake.
"I thought the crowd was pretty good," Hewitt said. "It was pretty fair both ways. I've got a third-round match at the US Open".
Hewitt was protesting black linesman Marion Johnson's two foot fault calls when none were made from the other judges when he implored umpire Andreas Egli to move Johnson.
"Look at him. Look at him and you tell me what the similarity is," said Hewitt. Blake took "similarity" to mean skin colour when Hewitt said he only meant Johnson's calls bore no resemblance to those of other line judges.
