Easy win keeps Davenport in top spot hunt

In-form Lindsay Davenport kept alive her hopes of finishing the year in top spot with a straightforward 6-3, 6-3 win over Amanda Coetzer at the WTA Championships on Wednesday.

Davenport, the second seed, outplayed the diminutive South African with an impressive display of power tennis in her first round match at the year-end event for the world's top 16 players.

The former world number one has just won three tournaments in a row to move into second place in the WTA rankings 61 points behind fellow American Jennifer Capriati.

Davenport can still end the year in the driving seat but Capriati has her fate in her own hands as she will stay where she is if she reaches the final, even if her closest rival wins the $3 million tournament.

"At this point I'm happy to end the year at number two," said Davenport, who has racked up 13 consecutive wins since she started her European indoor season.

"I've always felt that the number one player should have excelled in the Grand Slams and I didn't get to one final."

A break in the seventh game set up Davenport in the first set, which she wrapped up in 35 minutes. She then fought back from a break down in the second set before managing the key break in the sixth game.

RAGING BACKHAND

A raging two-handed backhand volley on match point gave her victory after 72 minutes and sent her through to a quarter-final against Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia, whom she beat in the last two finals she has played -- in Linz last Sunday and Zurich the week before.

Yugoslavia's Dokic, the sixth seed, cruised after a tight first set to beat American Meghann Shaughnessy 7-6, 6-2 in the battle of WTA Championships newcomers.

Shaughnessy kept fighting until she netted a forehand to lose the first set tiebreak 7-4 and Dokic then took control.

Anke Huber's career had earlier ended in disappointing fashion when Belgian teenager Justine Henin crushed her 6-1, 6-2 in the day's first match.

Huber, 26, enjoyed one of the finest moments of her 12-year career at the year-end Championships when she pushed Steffi Graf to five sets in all-German final in 1995.

But the former Australian Open runner-up looked a shadow of the top-four player she once was as Henin, seeded fourth, needed just 55 minutes to knock her out in the first round at Munich's Olympic hall.

"This was definitely my last match," the popular German said after bowing out before her home fans.

"Of course I would have liked to play better today but that's how it goes. Justine was just too good."

CLIJSTERS THROUGH

Wimbledon finalist Henin, who ended Huber's suffering with an ace on the first match point, goes on to meet American Serena Williams, the seventh seed, for a place in the last four.

Belgium's other rising star, French Open runner-up Kim Clijsters, also went through, beating Russia's Elena Dementieva 6-3, 7-6 after an exciting contest.

Dementieva mounted a brave challenge in the second set but collapsed in the tiebreak which she lost 7-2 after committing three double faults including one on match point.

Clijsters, the third seed, now plays Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. The young Belgian beat the veteran Spaniard in the first round on her year-end Championships debut last year and then fell to Dementieva.

The world's top eight doubles pair are also in Munich. The doubles competition starts on Thursday.