By Glyn James
October 19 2002

Patty Schnyder has advanced to the Swisscom challenge final by defeating Conchita Martinez 6-0 6-3. She will now face USA's Lindsay Davenport who defeated Justine Henin in contraversial circumstances. IN what can hardly be described as an exhibtion of great technical tennis, Patty Schnyder rallied home crowd support and taught Conchita Martinez a valuable lesson.

Neither player really went at it hammer and tong from the start, and without really breaking into much of a sweat, the former top tenner Schnyder found herself in a fantastic situation at 4-0 in the first set. Schnyder simply played a solid set and made sure she made no big errors. Martinez on the other hand was consistently hitting looping moonballs as she lacked the belief that she had the weapons to out-hit Schnyder. Meanwhile, the infamous slice backhand was failing to find the mark, and Patty found a rhythm with her own forehands.

At 4-0 down, Conchita began to open up a little and started trying to hit the ball with some venom. Unfortunately for her, she was missing by quite a margin as she hadn't formed any sort of rhythm. Patty comfortably saw out the remaining two games of the first set and boasted a 6-0 bagel.

The second set began a little differently. Conchita was eventually on the scoreboard after breaking Schnyder in the first game of the second set. There were four breaks in the first 5 games of the second set, and there was some hope for Martinez, who was now beggining to find some rhythm and was hitting some heavy ground strokes. Once again though, when it came down to the important points, Conchita lacked the cutting edge and went back to the looping moonballs tactics, to no avail.

The crowd seemed rather humoured as Martinez became increasingly angry with herself and began shouting. Schnyder kept her level of concentration just high enough to see off the potentially upsetting moonballs and the match drifted out of Martinez's reach.

It ended 6-0 6-3 to the Swiss Miss, and after the match an upbeat Schnyder thanked the crowd for their support and said that she expected a very different match in the final. She also stated that she wanted to 'put right' the fact that she has never beaten Lindsay Davenport.

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Meanwhile, Lindsay Davenport overcame Belgian Justine Henin in straight sets, 7-6 7-6.

An early break in the first set saw Davenport take an early advantage, but Justine clawed her way back into the match, and looked threatening at 6-5. Davenport fought hard though and forced the first set into a tie break. As usual in the tie break, the bigger hitter came out victorious. It ended 7-2.

Henin started the second set brightly and at 4-1, she must have believed that she had the second set in the bag. Davenport however, called for the trainer as she appeared to be suffering an injury in her right foot. After a lengthy break, Davenport returned to the court and began hitting the ball even harder: trying to keep the rallies short and save her foot. Davenport's comeback took the second set into another tie break. A late push from Henin saved two match points, but on the third match point, Henin returned long and handed Davenport a fourth final appearance at the Swisscom Challenge.

Henin was clearly angry at Davenport's time-out, and later said:
"I don't want to say anything that I will really regret about this, but if you are limping one minute, you don't usually play the next game the way she did.
"It was a very difficult experience and difficult for my concentration. I didn't know if she could play from what I saw at the other end of the court."

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The final should be a classic and 99% of the crowd (if not more) will be cheering for their own Patty Schnyder. Schnyder has always been a player able to exploit her opponent's weakenesses and will surely go out there and try to make Davenprort run. By contrast, Davenport will be hoping to hit big early, dominating the points from the centre of the court and forcing Patty Schnyder on the back foot. It should be a classic.