Davenport Seizes the Moment

PARIS —  The turning point in the match was far from spectacular. Two points from a straight-set victory Wednesday against the No. 1 tennis player in the world, 19-year-old Shuai Peng of China put an easy forehand right into the net.

Opportunity lost.

She knew it. Her opponent, Lindsay Davenport, did too. And probably so did nearly everyone else in the intimate confines of Court 1 at the French Open, where it happened in the 10th game of the second set.

Veterans usually make the most of a second chance and Davenport was no exception, defeating Peng, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-0. She will play Virginie Razzano of France in the third round on Friday.

Late in the second set, Davenport’s body language suggested she would be on a plane home to Southern California today, not getting ready to play Razzano. Peng served for the match at 5-4, and after the wobble at 30-15 she was broken two points later.

“I thought, ‘Wow, that was going to give her match point,’ ” Davenport said. “But every young player goes through that. I don’t know if that was the reason why. But that was a big miss.”

The hard-hitting Peng admitted she was haunted by the lost opportunity through the tiebreaker and 23-minute third set, saying her head got “a little bit tight” on the 30-15 point.

“So after the point, I think about a lot, if you go down the line, or maybe I have like two match points or whatever,” she said. “So after the point, in my head, I still think [about] the point because [this] is my first time playing Lindsay and she was the No. 1 seed.”

Davenport’s gamble -- not playing a European clay-court event this year -- almost backfired in her first two matches here. She has needed three sets in both rounds. “I definitely got lucky and escaped one today,” she said.

Though 11th-seeded Venus Williams needed three sets to win her second-round match, her mode of advancement was not an escape. Williams survived an erratic performance against Fabiola Zuluaga of Colombia, winning, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Emilie Loit of France eliminated Amy Frazier, the other American woman in second-round play on Wednesday, 6-4, 6-4.

Williams and Davenport are in the same half of the draw but in different quarters. Next for Williams is 15-year-old Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria. Karatantcheva, who won the French Open junior title last year, is best known for vowing to “kick off” the rear end of Maria Sharapova before they played last year at Indian Wells.

The youngster made no such prediction for the match against Williams.

“I remember I loved it when Venus came out with the blue and white things,” Karatantcheva said of Williams’ old look, the beads. “I thought that was the coolest thing.”

That match and the others on Friday will be overshadowed by the highly anticipated third-round pairing of Richard Gasquet of France and No. 4 Rafael Nadal of Spain, 18-year-olds born 15 days and only a few hundred miles apart.

Gasquet on Wednesday defeated Peter Wessels of the Netherlands, 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-1, and Nadal beat Xavier Malisse of Belgium, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.

“We’re not especially rivals,” Nadal said in the Spanish portion of his news conference. “It’s just the media who are looking for rivalry and confrontation, particularly the French media. As far as I’m concerned, there is no rivalry.”

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No. 1 Roger Federer routed Spain’s Nicolas Almagro Wednesday, 6-3, 7-6 (0), 6-2, and also said he had spoken to Jim Curley of the U.S. Tennis Assn. here, giving his opinion on plans to institute a replay system at the U.S. Open.

“I’m absolutely against it,” Federer said. “I’m against the challenge system. I’m for the way it is right now; don’t change that.”

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Tim Henman, who lost Wednesday in the second round, has been doing some investigative reporting about slower conditions at Wimbledon. He declared his findings “bizarre.”

It’s all about the tennis balls, he claimed. He said Wimbledon officials told him they open the balls “about” a week before the tournament.

“So you can imagine by the time you get through to the second week, you’ve been using balls that have been sitting in a can for three, maybe four weeks,” Henman said. “After a while, a couple of games, they look nice and new, and then they’re basically flat.”

Of course, his words won’t get much attention in London, will they?

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

French Open

Highlights from Day 3:

* Top men’s seeded winners: No. 1 Roger Federer, No. 4 Rafael Nadal, No. 5 Gaston Gaudio, No. 10 David Nalbandian, No. 14 Carlos Moya.

* Men’s seeded losers: No. 7 Tim Henman, No. 26 Jiri Novak, No. 31 Juan Ignacio Chela, No. 33 Robin Soderling.

* Top women’s seeded winners: No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, No. 4 Elena Dementieva, No. 8 Patty Schnyder, No. 9 Vera Zvonareva, No. 11 Venus Williams, No. 14 Kim Clijsters.

* Women’s seeded losers: No. 19 Shinobu Asagoe, No. 27 Amy Frazier, No. 31 Karolina Sprem.

TODAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

* Aravane Rezai, France, vs. Maria Sharapova (2), Russia.

* Jose Acasuso, Argentina, vs. Andy Roddick (2).

* Tommy Haas (21), Germany, vs. Vince Spadea.