By Dustin Dow
Enquirer staff writer

MASON - The players loved it. The fans showed up, and by all accounts the first Western & Southern Financial Group Women's Open was a surprising success.

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Sunday's action

No. 1 seed Lindsay Davenport won the championship Sunday in a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of No. 2 seed Vera Zvonareva.

Afterward, Davenport suggested that the tournament is better than its Tier III status would indicate and that in a non-Olympic year fans can expect more of the WTA's top-ranked players at the Lindner Family Tennis Center.

"It's been great to play here," said Davenport who is ranked No. 4 and earned $27,000 for winning the tournament. "It was the perfect time of year for me this year. Obviously for a lot of other players because of the Olympics it wasn't. ....You've got to give it a couple years to build a little more and hopefully more and more players will come."

The women's tournament was played here for the first time since 1988 and drew 50,080 fans, the most ever for women's tennis in Greater Cincinnati.

"It exceeded my expectations in terms of the people that were here and saw the women play," tournament chairman Paul Flory said.

The W&S Women's Open is the only Midwestern U.S. stop on the WTA Tour and returns next year, July 16-24.

Tournament organizers want to explore the possibility of moving up to Tier I or II. Part of that involves attracting the top players, which is why Flory said women players were treated equally as players in the men's tournament, which is one of the top 13 tournaments in the world.

"It doesn't really matter if it's Tier I, Tier II or Tier III," said Zvonareva who is ranked No. 9. "Players want to be in a nice place."

---

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com