Lindsay Ann Davenport (born June 8 1976 in Palos Verdes, California) is a former World No. 1 American professional female tennis champion. She has won three Grand Slam singles tournaments: the 1998 U.S. Open, 1999 Wimbledon, and the 2000 Australian Open. She also won an Olympic gold medal in singles in 1996. Davenport has earned over US $21 million in prize money.

Davenport was ranked as the #1 women singles and doubles player several times between 1998 and 2001. She returned to the number one ranking in singles during the latter part of the 2004 season, remaining there throughout most of the 2005 season (being briefly overtaken by Maria Sharapova for seven weeks). She was the year-end #1 player in 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005. Only three other women have finished #1 at least four times since the computer singles rankings were established in 1975: Steffi Graf (eight times), Martina Navratilova (seven times), and Chris Evert (six times).

She announced at the end of the 2005 season that she would play fewer events in 2006. As a result of this schedule, and a lower back injury, her ranking fell to #25, marking the first time since the computer singles rankings were established in 1975 that no American has been ranked in the top 10.

Her game is built largely around her groundstrokes, service return, and serve, which are considered to be among the most powerful and cleanly struck in the history of women's tennis. Her devastating return of second service is frequently taken well inside the baseline. Lack of court speed is perhaps her greatest weakness, mainly because of her size. At slightly over 6 ft 2 in (1.89 m), she is the tallest woman ever to win a Grand Slam singles title. However, she has worked to overcome this by losing weight, overhauling her conditioning program, and by becoming mentally stronger. She is an advocate for the mental game, as evidenced by her comments on the cover of "Smart Tennis: How to Play and Win the Mental Game."

She has a reputation among the tennis media and much of the tennis watching public of being thoughtful, polite, and balanced. She is also known among fans and tennis experts to be a good autograph signer. She remains an extremely popular figure among hardcore tennis fans who affectionately refer to her as "The Dav".

Davenport is the daughter of Wink Davenport, who was a member of the U.S. volleyball team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Ann Davenport. She attended both Chadwick School in Palos Verdes Peninsula, California and Murrieta Valley High School in Murrieta, California.

In 2003, she married investment banker and former All-American tennis player Jon Leach, brother of tennis player Rick Leach.

The couple announced on December 13, 2006, that Davenport was pregnant and that the baby was due in June 2007. Davenport took an indefinite break from competitive tennis, but has since gone public with her plans to once again compete on the WTA Tour. On June 10, 2007, she gave birth to a baby boy, Jagger Jonathan in Newport Beach, California.

While Davenport's first play dated back to 1991, she officially became a professional two years after her first professional-level matches. Davenport's doubles success in 1993 was a 17-16 record while she reached the top 100 in doubles rankings. She reached the third round at the 1993 Australian Open doubles competition with Chanda Rubin. Davenport entered the top 20, despite coming into her first tournament that year ranked 162. She qualified for the 1993 Australian Open, reaching the third round before falling to Mary Pierce. At the Indian Wells Masters, Davenport reached the quarterfinals ranked 99, but lost to 7th-ranked and future doubles partner Mary-Joe Fernandez. Later that year, Davenport won her first Tier III title at the European Open where she beat Nicole Bradtke in three sets in the finals. She reached the third round at the 1993 Wimbledon Championships, and at the 1993 U.S. Open, the American reached the fourth round ranked 24.

In 1994, Davenport came back to win another title; winning her first tournament that she entered in Brisbane. The next tournament Davenport was the 1994 Australian Open, reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, defeating number 5 Mary-Joe Fernandez in the fourth round before taking a beating from number one Steffi Graf. Her doubles success was better, where she again had success at the European Open and lost in the doubles final. Davenport's great results continued as she made semifinal showings at the Indian Wells and Miami Masters and won the title in Lucerne. At Wimbledon, Lindsay reached her second Grand Slam quarterfinal in three showings at a Grand Slam. Ranked ninth, Davenport defeated Gabriela Sabatini before losing to Conchita Martínez.

Doubles in 1994 was much improved for Davenport. She won the Indian Wells Masters with Lisa Raymond. She reached the 1994 French Open doubles final with Raymond before losing to Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva. She won a title in Oakland as well.

In 1995, Lindsay's success as a singles player continued. Her notes in the season were making the 1995 Australian Open quarterfinals, and winning a title in Strasbourg. In doubles, Davenport won reached the Australian Open semifinals with Lisa Raymond before falling to Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva. She also reached the 1995 French Open doubles semifinals before falling to Jana Novotná and Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario. In addition, Davenport and Raymond won the Sydney, Indian Wells Masters, Strasbourg and Tokyo non-Tier I tournament.

1996 for Davenport saw her reach the finals of Sydney, but lose in the fourth round of the Australian Open. Davenport reached the semifinals of the Indian Wells Masters, but lost in a hard match to Steffi Graf. Later that year, Davenport went on to reach her career-first win over Graf, beating her 6-3, 6-3 in the semifinals, where Davenport won the title. She won the Strasbourg later that year and reached the French Open quarterfinals.

Shortly after losing to Conchita Martínez in the French Open quarterfinals, Davenport went on to win the Gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics, defeating Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario in the final Gold medal match.

In doubles that year, Davenport teamed up with Mary-Joe Fernandez to win the Sydney title before losing in the final of the Australian Open to Chanda Rubin and Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario. Davenport and Fernandez went on, however, to get to the Miami Masters semifinals. Davenport built on her Olympic medal by winning the French Open doubles title with Fernandez won the title, defeating Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva in the final. Two other doubles titles were picked up and won and Davenport and Fernandez captured the year-end championships.

1997 saw Davenport lose before the quarterfinals of the 1997 Australian Open, losing to Kimberly Po in the fourth round. She went on to win in Oklahoma City, and then at Indian Wells for the first time in her career, defeating Irina Spirlea 6-2, 6-1. Davenport also won at the Bausch & Lomb Championships. She lost to Iva Majoli, the eventual champion, in the fourth round at the French Open and to Denisa Chládková in the second round at Wimbledon. She lost in the finals at Los Angeles after beating top-ranked Martina Hingis in the semifinals but lost to Monica Seles in the final. After winning in Atlanta, Davenport reached the 1997 US Open semifinals. She went on to win the titles in Zurich and Chicago before going down in the finals of Philidelphia to Martina Hingis 7-5, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (4).

Doubles was also very successful. She reached the Sydney final with Natasha Zvereva and the Australian Open final with Lisa Raymond. However, she also would win the 1997 US Open doubles title with Czech partner Jana Novotná. Davenport won titles in Tokyo, Indian Wells, Amelia Isnland and Berlin.

Davenport's talented singles play was well-rewarded by a Grand Slam singles title in 1998. She started out well by reaching the semifinals of the 1998 Australian Open, reaching her second consecutive Grand Slam semifinal in singles appearance. She entered Tokyo ranked number 2, beating Martina Hingis, at number 1, in the final, 6-3, 6-3. She lost in the Indian Wells Masters finals to Hingis after defeating Steffi Graf, and lost in the Miami Masters quarterfinals to Anna Kournikova. At the 1998 French Open, Davenport avenged defending champion Iva Majoli for defeating her in 1997's fourth round in the quarterfinals, before going down to Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario in the semifinals. She won titles in San Diego, Sanford and Los Angeles, defeating Hingis in the final, with Davenport's victories over Hingis increasing.

Her next victory on tour was her first Grand Slam at the 1998 US Open, defeating fifth-ranked Venus Williams in the semifinals and top-ranked Martina Hingis in the championship match.

She then won Zurich and lost to 17th ranked Steffi Graf despite attaining the number 1 ranking at Philidelphia. Davenport lost in the finals of the Chase Championships to Martina Hingis.

In doubles, Davenport impressively reached the finals of the 1998 Australian Open with Natalia Zvereva, but lost to wildard team of Hingis and Mirjana Lučić. Davenport and Zvereva would go on to lost to Hingis and Lučić again in the Tokyo finals, and then won both Indian Wells and Berlin, both times defeating Alexandra Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat in the final.

She and Zvereva then lost to Hingis and Jana Novotná in the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open doubles finals. Davenport won San Diego and Sanford with Zvereva and lost in the US Open finals for doubles. Davenport won Filderstadt and then the year-end championships for doubles with Zvereva, defeating Fusai and Tauziat 6-7, 7-5, 6-3. In 1998, Davenport reached all four Grand Slam doubles finals with Zvereva, losing to Hingis all four times.

1999 saw Davenport win another Grand Slam singles title. Her year started by winning the Sydney singles final and losing in the doubles final alongside Natalia Zvereva, but lost to Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova. Davenport did not play doubles at the 1999 Australian Open, but she made the semifinals of the singles event, before losing to Amelie Mauresmo after beating Venus Williams. At the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, Davenport and Zvereva beat Hingis and Jana Novotná, who they lost to in three of the four Grand Slam doubles finals that were played in 1998. Davenport's second singles title of the 1999 was at Madrid where she defeated Lucky Loser Paola Suárez in the finals. After this victory, her next victory was the 1999 Wimbledon Championships, picking up another Grand Slam singles title. In the final she defeated Steffi Graf 6-4, 7-5. Davenport also doubled her victory by winning the doubles title with Corina Morariu, defeating Mariaan de Swardt and Elena Tatarkova in the final 6-4, 6-4.

Continuing after the Wimbledon win, Davenport won the singles and doubles titles in Stanford, and won San Diego in doubles over Serena and Venus Williams in the final alongside Morariu. She lost in the singles semifinals to Serena Williams and in the doubles quarterfinals with Morariu to Chanda Rubin and Sandrine Testud at the 1999 US Open. Davenport won two additional singles titles that year and won the Chase Championships with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Martina Hingis in the final.

2000 was the year of which Davenport won her last Grand Slam title to date.

In 2004, Davenport won a tour-high seven titles, including four straight during the summer (Stanford, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Cincinnati). She also had the most match wins on the WTA Tour, with 63. She finished the year ranked first for the third time in her career.



Her success continued into 2005 when she reached her first Grand Slam final, at the Australian Open, since the U.S. Open in 2000. Unfortunately for Davenport, she lost a one set lead in the final, falling to Serena Williams in three sets.

At a tournament in Indian Wells, California in March, Davenport made history by defeating world number three Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-0. It marked the first time that a player ranked in the top three had ever been "shut out" on the WTA tour and was also the first time Sharapova had failed to win a game during a match.

Davenport bypassed the European clay court season and went to the 2005 French Open without having played a professional competitive match for weeks. She confounded expectations with a run to the quarterfinals on her least favourite surface, including a come-from-behind victory over Kim Clijsters in the fourth round. Davenport lost to eventual runner-up Mary Pierce but returned for Wimbledon as the top seed.

She easily made it to the fourth round, where she was tested again by Clijsters but came through in three sets to win her second successive match against the Belgian. Davenport then reached the semifinals, where her match against Amélie Mauresmo was interrupted by rain and was completed over the course of two days. Davenport eventually defeated Mauresmo 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 and faced 14th seeded Venus Williams in an all-American final. Davenport lead most of the way, including having a match point at 5-4 in the final set. Williams went on to win 4-6, 7-6, 9-7 in the longest (in terms of time) Wimbledon final in history. In that match, Davenport sustained a serious back injury while leading 4-2 (40-15) in the final set, although she acknowledged after the match that the injury did not cause her defeat and that Williams was the superior player on the day. The injury forced Davenport to withdraw from Fed Cup competition. She returned to the tour in Palo Alto, California. After reinjuring her back in a warmup just hours before her match, Davenport retired while trailing 5-0 in the first set. This back injury then forced her to withdraw from other hardcourt events in Carlsbad and Los Angeles.

Davenport returned to the WTA Tour in August, winning her comeback tournament in New Haven, Connecticut without dropping a set. Davenport then reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, where she held a match point on Elena Dementieva before falling 7-6 (6) in the third set. Davenport briefly lost the #1 ranking following the event.



After the loss at the U.S. Open, Davenport captured the title in Bali without dropping a set and subsequently qualified for the WTA Tour Championships. She then won the title in Filderstadt, Germany, defeating Mauresmo in the final for the second year in a row. The win made her only the tenth woman ever to win 50 career WTA singles titles.

In Zurich, Davenport defeated Daniela Hantuchová 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, saving two match points. By winning the match, Davenport was assured of recapturing the World No.1 ranking from Maria Sharapova the following week. In subsequent matches, she inched past Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 and defeated seventh seed Anastasia Myskina 6-0, 6-4 to reach her sixth Zurich final in as many visits and set up a rematch of the 2002 final with Swiss Patty Schnyder. Davenport overcame the sixth seed 7-6 (5), 6-3 for her fourth title at Zurich and her sixth title of 2005, second only to Clijsters' nine. It was also the first time Davenport had saved match points en route to a victory since the 1999 U.S. Open. The Zurich Open victory left her with eleven Tier I titles, second among active players.

Davenport was a semifinalist at the WTA tour year-ending championships (losing to Mary Pierce 7-6, 7-6), which ensured that she finished the year ranked No. 1. 2005 was the fourth time that Davenport ended the year ranked No. 1, joining Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, and Monica Seles as the only female players to end a season ranked first at least four times.

In 2005, TENNIS Magazine ranked Davenport 29th in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.

On February 22, 2006, Davenport became just the eighth woman in WTA history to win 700 singles matches, when she handed out her fourth career "double bagel," defeating Elena Likhovtseva 6-0, 6-0 in the second round of the [Dubai Duty Free Women's Open.

Davenport was absent from the court from March 2006, when she was defeated in the fourth round of Indian Wells by Martina Hingis 6-3, 1-6, 6-2, until August 2006 with a back injury. She returned in Los Angeles, losing to Samantha Stosur 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 in the second round (having received a first round bye). It was Davenport's earliest exit from a tournament since early 2003. Davenport attributed the loss to her having resumed training only three weeks prior to the start of the tournament. Davenport had re-hired Adam Pieterson as her coach, with whom she worked during her 2004-05 resurgence.

After the loss in Los Angeles, Davenport returned to the Pilot Pen Tournament in New Haven, defeating Katarina Srebotnik and Schiavone in her first two matches. Davenport then faced world #1 Mauresmo in the quarterfinals, posting a 6-4, 7-5 victory. In the semifinals, Davenport defeated Stosur (who had beaten Davenport in Los Angeles) 7-6, 7-6. Davenport was forced to retire with a right shoulder injury while playing Justine Henin in the final.

Despite injury concerns, Davenport reached the 2006 U.S. Open quarterfinals where she again lost to Henin, 6-4, 6-4.

Davenport's last competitive match before the announcement of her pregnancy was a quarterfinal loss in Beijing at the China Open to Mauresmo 6-4, 6-3, who was at the time the top ranked player in the world. It was Mauresmo's first win over Davenport after losing nine straight times.

On July 18, 2007, Davenport announced that she would make a return to the WTA Tour. She entered the doubles competition of the New Haven tournament, along with partner Lisa Raymond. However, her return was cut short when she and Raymond lost to top seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber by a score of 6-7 (1), 6-3, 10-4. She hopes to participate in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Lindsay also announced that she would make a return to singles in Bali, Indonesia, as well as playing in the doubles with Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchová.

Davenport returned to singles competition by winning her first title since 2005, defeating her doubles partner Daniela Hantuchová 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 in the final. En route to the title, Davenport defeated fifth seed Eleni Daniilidou and world number three Jelena Janković, among others. Hantuchová and Davenport also advanced to the semifinals of Bali, before withdrawing from the tournament.

Davenport's second tournament was the China Open, held in Beijing. Davenport defeated Julie Ditty 6-0, 6-2 in the first round and then eighth-seeded Eleni Daniilidou 7-5, 6-3. She proceeded to defeat fourth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva, 7-6(1), 6-1. For the first time in the comeback, Davenport played a player who has beaten her before (Dementieva holds a 5-10 win-loss record against her). In the rematch with Jelena Janković in the semifinals she lost 6-3, 7-5 even though she broke first in both sets. She was visibly upset with the chair umpire during the match; at one point an errant ball tossed aloft between points by a frustrated Janković clipped Davenport in the head. Nevertheless, Davenport stated that the she's really pleased with the way she's playing.

Lindsay has officially committed to play in the Bell Challenge in Quebec City in November. This will be her last tournament before she starts preparing for the 2008 season.

* Named in 1993 the Rookie of the Year by both Tennis Magazine and World Team Tennis. * 1996 International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Champion in women's doubles. * 1998 ITF World Champion in women's singles and doubles. * 1998 Tennis Magazine player of the year. * 1998 and 1999 Women's Tennis Association (WTA) player of the year. * Diamond ACES award winner in 1998 and 1999. * Named the U.S. Olympic Committee's female athlete of the month for July 1999 after winning the women's doubles and singles at Wimbledon. * Voted by journalists at the 2000 French Open as the winner of the Prix Orange, which goes to the player who has shone in the tennis world the international essence of fairness, kindness, availability, and friendliness. * Re-elected to the WTA player council in 2002. * Voted by the International Tennis Writers Association as a joint winner of the 2004 women's Ambassador for Tennis award.

*2005 Indian Wells: Defeated Maria Sharapova, 6-0, 6-0. Never before had a player inside the top 3 been defeated by this scoreline on the WTA Tour. It was the first time Sharapova didn't win a game in a match. *2005 Wimbledon Final: Lost to Venus Williams, 6-4, 6-7, 7-9. Davenport had a match point in the third set but lost the match. It was apparent that Davenport had a back injury, but she stated that Venus had played better. *2006 US Open Third Round: Defeated Katarina Srebotnik, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6. Davenport was down two match points in the match, but came back to win it in a tiebreak. *2007 Bali First Round: Defeated Eleni Daniilidou, 6-2, 6-2. Davenport had not played a singles match in 2007 but came back to immediately win the match easily. *2007 Bali Quarterfinals: Defeated Jelena Janković, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. Janković had entered the top 3 and Davenport continued her Bali run in 2007 by defeating the top seed of the event.

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the China Open, which ended on September 23, 2007.

*A = did not participate in the tournament. *SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played. *¹ The San Diego tournament achieved Tier I status only in 2004. *² If ITF women's circuit (Hardcourt: 3-1) and Fed Cup (23-2) participations are included, overall win-loss record stands at 732-188.

*List of famous tall women *List of female tennis players *Wimbledon champions (Ladies' Singles) *List of Grand Slam Women's Singles champions

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