Lionel Cironneau / AP

Lindsay Davenport's chances at making a serious run at the French Open women's singles title have been boosted by the way she has battled on the red clay, which is not her favorite surface, says Bud Collins of NBCSports.com.

The road ahead
Davenport still isn’t the favorite to win here, but she’s been winning ugly for the first time in her long career. That’s a good sign for a player who’s usually been more comfortable as a frontrunner.

The Southern Californian is known for having negative body language, but she’s staying positive. Because of that, she now has a decent shot at a career Grand Slam.

Clijsters was the favorite in the top half of the draw, but one now has to like Davenport’s chances to at least reach the final.

Davenport is getting by with experience and calm. Even though she only gave herself an outside shot of winning the tournament, she came to Paris anyway, believing that’s the proper behavior for a world No. 1. And she’s right about that.

She’ll play Mary Pierce in the quarterfinals. Pierce needed 11 match points to advance to meet Davenport. Davenport is 8-2 against Pierce in her career (including 2-1 on clay).

Although the two veterans haven’t played since 1999, Davenport is a cleaner groundstroker than Pierce, the 2000 French champion. Expect that Pierce will push Davenport and will surely have the crowd on her side, but she won’t be able to dictate play against her bigger opponent like she did against Patty Schnyder in the fourth round.

Davenport's two potential semifinals foes -- aging Russian Elena Likhovtseva and the fast-talking 15-year-old Sesil Karatantcheva -- are not ready for a primetime final.

Davenport is and whether she can knock out Justine Henin-Hardenne, Svetlana Kuznetsova or Maria Sharapova in the final remains to be seen, but she’s already shown has big enough weapons to challenge anyone on her least favorite surface.

Plus, with each passing match, she’s enlarging the size of her heart.

A future in question
This might be Davenport’s last appearance in Paris, where her best result is making the semifinals in 1998. She’s about to turn 29 and won’t make a decision as to whether she will retire until the end of this year.

She wants to start a family with her husband, Jon, and given how close she was to retiring last year, it’s hard to imagine her pushing her cranky frame through another offseason of exhausting workouts.

I don’t think there’s a better than 20 percent chance of her returning to Paris next year, but if she happens to win the U.S. Open and have a good fall, she might be back at Roland Garros next spring -- especially if she'd the defending champion.

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Djokovic, Federer could meet in French SF again

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Sharapova ready to take game by storm again

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