New Haven Independent

In a game marked by deep groundstrokes and plenty of aces, the Californian beat France’s Mauresmo 6-4, 7-5 in the quarterfinal round Thursday.

On the brink of winning the first set, Davenport struggled through two deuces before acing her way to a third. She sent down a second powerful serve. A line judge called it “out.” Davenport challenged the call, initiating instant replay cameras, a new feature that is being piloted this year as an entertainment-booster for fans. A replay showed the ball hit the line: judgement overruled. Set Davenport. The crowd broke out in applause.

Instant replay cameras “came in handy,” Davenport said after the match.

After playing a confident first set, the athlete admitted some “sloppy” playing in the second. After all, she was playing only her fourth match after a 5-month hiatus due to bulging discs in her back. “I didn’t expect to play perfectly so soon back. I thought the first set was at a high level. I thought the second set was definitely a lot sloppy.”

Mauresmo, who won Wimbledon six weeks ago, has been out with her own injury, a shoulder sprain. When she’s come head to head with Davenport, she’s now lost 12 of 15 times. This time, she attributed the loss to “tennis block. Being a little bit short” — not in height, though at 6 foot 2 inches, Davenport does tower over her, but hitting spin-loaded strokes into the net.

Mauresmo had her own spectacular moments — she spun around out of nowhere and somehow got her racket on a deep baseline hit that looked like a sure winner — but said Davenport’s “heavy” shots were a challenge to return. Davenport’s eight aces made a dent, too.

Both said they are happy to get as many matches in this week as a warm-up to the U.S. Open.

Davenport advances to the Pilot Pen semi-finals, where she’ll meet someone who defeated her in Los Angeles three weeks ago with serves topping 110 miles per hour: Australian Samantha Stosur. The two play at noon Friday.

In other women’s tennis news, Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne gave another dominating performance against Italian Mara Santangelo, beating her 6-2, 6-3. Henin-Hardenne advances to play the Russian “dictator” Svetlana Kuznetsova Friday at 7 p.m.