Davenport Wins Second Title of Comeback in Quebec

November 5, 2007

Lindsay Davenport capped yet another incredible week in her comeback to professional tennis on Sunday afternoon, capturing the Bell Challenge title with a runaway 6-4, 6-1 championship victory over final debutante Julia Vakulenko. After losing just 11 games in her first three matches of the week, Davenport - who was a wildcard into the Tier III event - faced her toughest test in the semifinals, taking on No.2 seed Vera Zvonareva and prevailing in a close one, 6-2, 6-7(3) 6-3. But, after hanging with Davenport through the first nine games of the match it was all downhill for No.3 seed Vakulenko in the final. She was broken at love to drop the set and succumbed to the increasingly-aggressive Davenport in the 22-minute second set. The American was particularly devastating on serve; she even won one game in the second set completely with aces, those four included among her 12 total for the match.

"My game plan was to serve well and just hold my serve," Davenport said. "Once I was able to break her at the end of the first set, that helped my momentum. I was focused on my serving and knew the rest of it would take care of itself."

Her career accomplishments including three majors, holding the World No.1 ranking and over $20 million in prize money, Davenport left the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at the end of last season to pursue motherhood. Having given birth to son Jagger Jonathan Leach (who was ever present in Québec City) in the summer, she would return to the Tour in Asia in September, beating the likes of Jelena Jankovic, Daniela Hantuchova and Elena Dementieva en route to the title at Bali and the semifinals of Beijing.

And now, in her third tournament back, she captures an incredible 53rd career title, and is now tied for eighth on the all-time list with Monica Seles.

Christina Fusano and Raquel Kops-Jones earned the doubles title with a 6-2 7-6(6) victory over No.3 seeds Stéphanie Dubois and Renata Voracova, squandering one match point at 5-4 in the second set and two more at 6-5, then fighting off a set point while down 6-5 in the tie-break en route to their first Tour titles of any kind.

(Courtesy of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)