By Chris Davies
March 16 2003

Top seed Kim Clijsters used her speed and a powerful attack to down fourth seed Lindsay Davenport 6-4 7-5 to win the Pacific Life Open on Sunday In winning her second title of the year, the third-ranked Clijsters stood strong in a seesaw contest during which Davenport took huge cuts at the Belgian's second serves and Clijsters ran down nearly every ball. The top seed came back from 3-1 down in the first set, breaking the American for 3-3 when Davenport committed one of her 10 double faults on the day.

Davenport had three break points at 5-5, but Clijsters saved all three. The American fought off another match point at 5-6 with an inside out forehand winner, but on Clijsters' third match point, Davenport buried an overhead into the net.

Clijsters ended the contest with 25 winners to 20 from Davenport, who also committed 37 unforced errors. Clijsters has now won 12 titles and has reached four finals this year, winning two of them.

Davenport can claim revenge when she teams up with Lisa Raymond in the doubles final against Kim Clijsters and Ai Sugiyama.

Clijsters will be hoping to continue her good form next week at the NasDaq 100 Open where the Williams sisters are back in action.

Results

(1) Kim Clijsters (BEL) bt (4) Lindsay Davenport (USA)
6-4, 7-5