Davenport is in great form

It would have been an apt celebration for the women's game and the present dominance of American women in it.

Capriati may be going for a Grand Slam of her own in 2001 but American women already hold a Grand Slam of sorts with Venus Williams winning the final two Majors of last season and Capriati the opening brace of this.

Williams also added an Olympic gold to the portfolio for good measure in Sydney.

She started the ball rolling last year at Wimbledon with victory over Davenport in the final having seen off her sister in the semis.

It was the first all-American women's final at Wimbledon since 1990 when Martina Navratilova beat Zina Garrison.

You wait 10 years and then, like buses, two come along at once and one of the most respected journalists in the Wimbledon press corps thinks more will follow in the coming years.

But even Bud Collins of the Boston Globe, one of the world's most authoritative tennis journalists, is at a loss to explain the dominant position of the American women.

"It's a cyclical thing," Collins explains.

Williams is looking for a second Wimbledon title

"We're on the cusp of the greatest group of men in American tennis - Sampras, Courier, Agassi, Martin, Washington and Chang - now it's the turn of the women."

Collins describes Capriati's career as a case of "arrested development".

"If she had stayed as she had started she would have won numerous titles by now.

"Davenport has taken her time to develop but is now there and the Williams sisters have popped out of nowhere."

The only one of the three American semi-finalists to have dropped a set was Capriati and as if to emphasise the strength of women's tennis stateside it was Williams junior who inflicted the damage on her record.

Serena lost last year to her sister in the semi-finals and after defeat to Capriati it seems that the only thing standing in her way at Wimbledon are her fellow Americans.

And Collins can only see Americans standing in the way of their compatriots as they battle it out for overall victory.

Crisis

He dismisses Justine Henin, the fourth semi-finalist, as providing "no trouble" for Capriati, and Collins thinks it's hard to look beyond American women as they stretch their national Grand Slam in the future.

"Martina Hingis is suffering a brain crisis in the face of their power and at the moment she is not playing in the same manner that got her to the top.

"She may have had her vogue unless she can grow!"

The diminutive Henin faces a tall order against the American triumvirate who threaten to ring in a new order in the women's game even if their celebrations are delayed by a day.