Lindsay Davenport is 18-1 as a Mom

Chris Clarey over at IHT has a wish list for tennis in 2008. He hopes Maria Sharapova has a healthy shoulder. Clarey says Sharapova's intensity trumps her screaching and grunting, albeit "barely". I don't know Chris, I still have to watch the Shrieky-one with the volume off.

If Sharapova gets through to the second round she will probably play Lindsay Davenport. When Davenport announced she was pregnant, everyone assumed she intended to retire. So did she. But there she was last fall, playing team tennis a mere six weeks after giving birth to her son Jagger. Davenport has already won three titles during her comeback, beating several top players along the way. 

Davenport's comeback is one of the biggest stories to hit tennis in quite a while. If she gets by Sharapova, Lindsay is a definite contender for the championship. The LA Times has a nice article about Davenport's return to tennis, which will include appearances at Wimbledon, the US Open and possibly the summer Olympics in Beijing. Lindsay will almost certainly be seeded by Wimbledon. If so, watch out. Before her temporary retirement, Lindsay had the 2006 title in the bag before choking it away to Venus Williams. She was playing the best tennis of her career then, and she appears to be picking up right where she left off.

Her peers are impressed. "I'm speechless because she looks better than me and she's seven months out of having a baby" said Serena Williams. "I'm convinced if I had a baby, seven months later I'd probably still be in the hospital trying to get over the pain." She said it, not us.