Davenport overcomes slow start to reach quarter-finals

The locker rooms were again busier than the courts again at the United States Open yesterday. Rain delays provoked a suggestion that Flushing Meadows ought to be renamed Wimbledon West. Alan Mills, the Wimbledon referee, who is assisting in the referee's office here, could make a case for calling Wimbledon Flushing Meadows East.

More than seven hours elapsed before play was possible, more than an hour longer than competitors and spectators had to wait for the first ball to be hit on Sunday. Three inches of rain has fallen on New York in the past 48 hours.

As on Sunday, when Serena Williams defeated the Czech Daja Bedanova for the loss of only two games, the organisers switched a women's singles so that at least one match would be completed in the day session, thereby avoiding refunds. Last night Lindsay Davenport, the fourth seed, needed only 58 minutes to defeat Italy's Silvia Farina Elia, 6-3, 6-1 and advance to the quarter-finals. Davenport, who missed half the year's tournaments after knee surgery, is slowly recovering form and confidence. Richard Williams, father of Serena and Venus, the top two players in the world, goes as far as to say that Davenport poses the biggest threat to one of his girls taking the trophy and the cheque back home to Florida again.

Davenport made a sluggish start to last night's contest, losing the opening two games to her 13th-seeded opponent. Farina Elia was unable to sustain the momentum, however, and Davenport broke back for 2-2 and broke again for 4-2. When it came to serving out the set, the tall, powerful Californian was unable to convert her first two sets points but did convert the third, luring Farina Elia into netting a backhand. The second set was hardly a contest. Davenport broke in the opening game and Farina Elia did not win a game until serving at 0-4. The Italian double-faulted to 0-40 in the final game and netted a forehand on match point.

Serena Williams made no comment about her stalker, Albrecht Strohmeyer, from Frankfurt, in her post-match interview. A WTA official prefaced the 20-year-old Wimbledon champion's press conference with a statement that "Serena will not be addressing any questions related to the stalker incidents due to legal and security reasons".

Richard Williams was more forthcoming. Having said he did not think Serena was as worried about the situation as he was, he underlined his fears: "I don't think the guy is ever going to give up. At some point something very tragic could take place."

Asked if his words might be construed as a threat, he said: "Would [anything] stop me from killing this guy if he did something to one of my daughters? I do not think all the police officers in the world could stop me."

The tournamnet may have been short on matches but there is controversy aplenty. A high-ranking umpire has accused the United States Tennis Association of denying him top matches because he is black. Cecil Hollins says he is the only gold-badged American male official in history not to have taken the chair for a singles final at the US Open.

Hollins, who has umpired for 11 years, filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on 23 August accusing the USTA of treating him differently than other similarly-qualified officials because of his race. "I want for all the people who, like me, haven't been treated right to get a fair shake," said Hollins, a New York traffic court judge.

As well as claiming racial discrimination, Hollins alleges that the USTA's treatment is also a retaliation for his attempts to organise a union for American tennis officials who have grievances.

On arriving at the National Tennis Center to start work last week, Hollins said, he was approached by Richard Kaufman, the USTA's director of officiating. "He said: 'Are you planning on causing a commotion at the US Open?'," Hollins said. "He wanted to talk it out, but I knew talking about it wasn't going to help."

Hollins said he had not officiated at a match on any of the US Open's show courts (Arthur Ashe Stadium, Louis Armstrong Stadiums, and Grandstand Court) since 1998, until last Saturday, when he was given a last-minute assignment for a men's doubles match on Grandstand. He had originally been selected to to work only until Friday. "I went in on Friday to say goodbye and they told me: 'Oh, your last day is tomorrow'," Hollins said. "Then I got assigned a match on the Grandstand. Is that a coincidence?"

Hollins is not the first official to be at odds with the USTA. Some years ago a line judge complained that he had been told he was too fat to work at the tournament. The gist of his case was that he was refused work at Flushing Meadows because he had broken a chair. But that, he insisted, was at another tournament.