MELBOURNE, JANUARY 28: The world's top two women players will battle for the Australian Open crown on Saturday. While the outcome is debatable, Martina Hingis has much more to lose than American challenger Lindsay Davenport.Hingis claims Centre Court as her own, and never tires of telling anyone who will listen. ``It has been my court for three years and I intend to keep going,'' she says.Davenport, four years older but in only her third Grand Slam final to Hingis's nine, has other ideas and fired the first psychological shot when she said: ``I like to beat the best when I win the Grand Slams.''Bluster aside, the statistics point to a Davenport win. She has beaten Hingis nine times, a feat achieved by no other player. Hingis has seven wins but Davenport beat her in all three meetings last year in straight sets. Only Steffi Graf has a better win-loss ratio against the 19-year-old.On championship form, Hingis has the edge - just.Neither have dropped a set, but the No 1 seed has given away four fewer games and taken around an hour less to get into the last two.Both have had a reasonably easy passage to the final, although Hingis was pushed by Sandrine Testud in the fourth round and Davenport by Jennifer Capriati in the last set of her semi-final.In theory, Davenport should be the underdog given Hingis' record here and she acknowledges it.``It's going to be tough. I am definitely the underdog going into this final,'' said Davenport, who may also been hampered by a strained left groin muscle that she's been carrying through most of this week.``But beating her three times in a row last year is going to give me a lot of confidence.''Hingis brushes this aside, saying she is now a better player, but admits that mentally, Davenport has been her toughest opponent over the past few years.``Yes, mentally, for sure because the last three times we played I lost,'' she said. ``She has been able to serve very well against me and I didn't have anything to hurt her at that time. But I think I've improved since. I have got a little bit better with some of the strokes, and also my serves.''Davenport is a high-class baseliner able to dictate a match with her groundstokes, but Hingis is an all-court player who anticipates and reaches balls other players don't even try for.``I know I'm going to make some errors, but I'm going to try and attack the ball and the fast courts may help me,'' said the American.``Attack her serve a lot because sometimes, that's the weakest shot you get from her and I have to serve well.''Hingis said playing Davenport would be a different ball-game to her previous matches. ``Lindsay is the top player out there with her solid groundstrokes,'' she said. ``If I have a chance, I'll have to take it because you know Lindsay never gives you many chances.''Davenport beat Hingis at the 1998 US Open and downed seven-time champion Graf at last year's Wimbledon. Hingis won Wimbledon and the US Open in 1997 but has not won another Grand Slam apart from the Australian Open since then. She was runner-up in the French Open in 1997 and 1999 and lost the US Open finals to Davenport in 1998 and Serena Williams last year.
