Desna Mandich

Lindsay Davenport grabbed her bag and quickly made her way across Stadium Court, briefly raising her hand to wave goodbye to her disappointed Southern California home cheering section.

Twenty-four minutes into her quarterfinal match against Jelena Jankovic, the two-time Pacific Life Open singles champion and new mom pulled the plug. Davenport woke up Thursday morning and couldn't move. A few hours later, lingering back problems forced her to retire after dropping the first set, 2-6.

"Obviously, I've gone down this road before," said Davenport, 31, who withdrew from five events, including Wimbledon and the French Open, with a back injury in 2006 before she took an 11-month maternity absence from the Sony Ericsson WTP Tour.

"But sometimes these things happen, and when you're familiar with an injury, you kind of know right away what you're up against."

Davenport said she injured her back during practice a day before coming to the Pacific Life. She said the injury had improved throughout the tournament, and that she felt great after her fourth-round victory over Marian Bartoli on Tuesday night.

But Thursday morning her body wouldn't cooperate, a disappointment for Davenport, who tried to play a schedule that would help her chances in American tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami.

Davenport met her future husband at the Pacific Life Open, and a year ago when she was an expectant mother, her time in Indian Wells helped convince the Southern California native to come back to tennis.

"It's just (been) a lot of tennis, and the older you get, obviously it's no surprise that it's tougher to come back week after week," said Davenport, who has banked four singles titles since returning to the tour in September to push her career total to 55. "My decision on Miami will come in the next few days.

"This tournament meant a lot to me," she said, "just because of all my memories here and being in the California and it being so special to me."

Thursday, Davenport showed little of the spunk that helped her top Bartoli, Chan Yung-Jan and Gisela Dulko on her way to her 12th quarterfinal appearance in 14 main draws at the Pacific Life.

Davenport had trouble rotating, and several times over the first set she simply watched balls fly by her. The loss ended Davenport's eight-match winning streak in Indian Wells.

"I didn't know she was hurt," Jankovic said. "I love to play a full match, but unfortunately she had some problem which kept her from finishing."

Davenport said she knows that she will have more to deal with now, being a mother in her 30s. But she still doesn't question her decision to balance tennis and motherhood, though she said one of the toughest parts of a back injury is that it keeps her from picking her son, Jagger, up too often.

"It's been a tough couple of weeks in that regard," she said. "But if you would have asked me, you know, two weeks ago if I would get this far and feel as well as I did throughout the tournament, I'd be ecstatic with were I'm at now."

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