It was the 2003 US Open and Lindsay Davenport had just lost to Kim Clijsters in the semifinals.

For Davenport, the 1998 US Open champion, she was not sure if she would be back to Flushing Meadows the next year at age 27 and needing foot surgery. It was potentially her last US Open as a player.

After the match ended, she sat down in a chair on the sideline and one of the ballboys followed, sitting down next to her and giving her a big hug.

The crowd wondered what was going on, and Davenport fielded many questions from the media following the match. Did she know the ballboy? Who was he?

Davenport did indeed know the boy, Mark Menendez, as he had been a ballboy at each of her US Open matches for years.

It is just one aspect of the US Open that gives the tournament a special place in Davenport’s heart. The former world No. 1 is looking forward to making her return to Flushing Meadows in 2008 as she missed the tournament in 2007 after taking time off from the tour to have her first son, Jagger, who was born that June.

This year, the 2008 US Open also marks the 10-year anniversary of Davenport’s only US Open title, a 6-3, 7-5 win over Martina Hingis. Prior to 2007, it was the only Grand Slam tournament she had never missed in her career since her main-draw debut in 1991 as a 15-year-old.

Since she has returned to the tour she has only continued to etch her place in history as one of the best players of all-time.

“I’m so much (looking forward to coming back to US Open),” Davenport, now 32, said. “The US Open was the first Grand Slam I ever played as a junior, a professional, the first one I ever won. All the firsts that could possibly happen in a Grand Slam happened for me at the US Open.”

“You get close to people at the USTA throughout your career. You see the same people – the same practice court guys, the same security guys, all of that,” she added. “You don’t develop that fondness necessarily when you are in a foreign country. I love all that about it. I love the fans, who I think I have become more of a favorite with in the latter stages of my career. Everything about it, it is fun for me to go back there.”

Menendez, who started as a “ballperson in training” at the US Open because he was only 10 years old, is now heading to college. However, he may be around for at least part of the tournament and have a chance to see Davenport again.

“He started because when he was young, I was his favorite player and they gave him to me just to take care of the water. As the years went, every single match I went out he would be there taking care of me,” she said. “Every match I play, he is there. He did my matches through ’06. He emails me sometimes and he said he would be there in ‘08 if I was playing.”

The 2008 US Open will be the 17th Davenport has played in her career and it has been a tournament at which she has yielded consistently good results. Besides her 1998 title, she reached the final in 2000, losing to fellow American Venus Williams and has reached the quarterfinals or better each year since 1997. She has not committed to playing on the tour past this year, so the 2008 US Open could possibly be her last.

Of course she had hoped to win more US Opens in her career to go with her three Grand Slam titles but now at age 32, married with a child, Davenport knows she might not be the best in the world anymore – but it does not mean she cannot keep winning.

“The memories always come back when I am introduced on Arthur Ashe…(when I’m announced as) ‘Playing in her 17th US Open’ to the crowd. I’m always just like, ‘Oh my God.’ It is crazy,” Davenport said. “Everything seems like a different lifetime ago from when I played my first US Open to the next life of when I won it to the next life of the 2000 years. Everything seems so different. It doesn’t even feel like the same person when I go back and see pictures or see videos of it.”

“Right now I feel like I am playing because I still want to do my job and I still feel like I can do it to the best of my abilities,” she added. “I don’t know if that will be the best in the world anymore, being 32, having a child, going through a lot of physical changes. But that doesn’t mean I still can’t go out and play and be successful and see what can happen.”

Since her return to the tour in August 2007 after having Jagger with husband Jon Leach – she was back playing doubles in New Haven just over two months later – Davenport has won four singles titles, giving her 55 for her career and placing her seventh on the all-time list with Virginia Wade, passing one of her idols, Monica Seles.

With the luck of the draw at the 2008 Australian Open, Davenport faced 2006 US Open champion Maria Sharapova in just the second round and was defeated. However, with her first-round victory in Melbourne and the prize money she won, she moved into the No. 1 spot on the all-time list in prize money, becoming the highest-earning female tennis player ever with $21,897,501.

Her place in history is not something Davenport worries about but just feels lucky to have had such a great career.

“For me, Monica Seles is my idol. She is one of the greatest players that ever played, so when someone said I passed her, it just doesn’t even ring possibly true,” Davenport said. “I’m incredibly blessed and fortunate. I’m not sure why it’s happened for me but I try not to think about it at all. I’m sure when I’m older and my kids maybe have an interest in laughing at me in records books or seeing me in USTA yearbooks, it might come up more in our household but for now I just don’t even think about it.”

Another former world No. 1 and two-time US Open champion, Tracy Austin, has known Davenport since she was a child as both grew up in Southern California. As a mother of three sons and now 45, Austin thinks Davenport’s comeback and success are amazing.

“It’s fantastic what she has done, the fact that she was able to come back so quickly and get in shape. I think she is a real inspiration to moms out there,” Austin said. “If you are determined like she is and disciplined like the athlete that she is, you are able to get back in that great of shape and to me, she seems a little bit more relaxed because she always has Jagger. She is thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying him and I see her with him and she loves being a mother. I think she has her priorities straight.”

Austin first saw Davenport play when she was seven or eight years old and Austin was already in her 20s and a Grand Slam champion. She recalls playing doubles with her husband against Davenport and Nicole London when the latter two were teenagers.

Leading up to the 2008 US Open, Davenport has been battling a right knee injury since June that forced her to withdraw before her second-round match at Wimbledon and pull out of two Olympus US Open Series events in Los Angeles and Stanford as well as the singles competition at the 2008 Olympics. However, she is still competing in doubles in Beijing with world No. 1 doubles player Liezel Huber.

But there is no doubting her desire to play in Flushing Meadows this year – a place she has had so many unforgettable memories. She missed playing there last year after making the trip to New York in August every year since 1991.

“I was trying so hard last year to play too, which was amazing but it would have been eight or nine weeks after my son was born,” she said. “I wanted to so badly but it was one of those things where my husband was like, ‘I can’t let you do this.’ He knew I wasn’t ready. But in my heart and emotionally, I wanted so badly to play there. I do everything in my power to get there and play and for the most part, maybe for two years didn’t do well, but for the other part I’ve been such a consistent performer.”

It was 1993 that Davenport had her first real success in the main draw at the US Open (after winning the junior title in 1992), reaching her first career Grand Slam fourth round where she lost to Gabriela Sabatini. In 1997 in Flushing Meadows, she advanced to her first career Grand Slam semifinal, after saving match point in the quarterfinals against Jana Novotna and coming back to win the third set 7-6.

“That (1993 match against Sabatini) was like my coming out party as a legitimate player not the junior people want to check out. It was one of the most exciting matches I had ever played. It was on the Grandstand court, the crowd was behind me as the underdog. It was one of the few times I have played at the US Open as the underdog,” Davenport said. “(1997) was a big step because I hadn’t been to the semifinal of a Grand Slam yet and winning 7-6 in the third was really cool. Of course winning (stands out) in (1998) and just being part of other finals. Any time you are in a Grand Slam final, it is fantastic.”

For Austin (among others), it has been enjoyable to watch Davenport progress in her career from a child to a top junior player to world No. 1 and now a mother. For all Davenport achieved prior to motherhood, Austin sees all of her post-baby success as icing on the cake.

“It is nice to have that balance of motherhood but she is also enjoying the challenge of competing on the tour. You look at her record (since she has been back) – (four titles) is just phenomenal,” Austin said. “I would think if I were her, I would think this is like a bonus career. She has already won three Grand Slams, she has already been No. 1 in the world, so I think she could look at this as an extra bonus.”