Caroline Wozniacki: How long can she hold the top spot without winning a Grand Slam – Tennis Special
20-year-old Caroline Wozniacki is the first women tennis player from Denmark to have reached the number one spot in world rankings. She elevated to the highest place in women’s rankings for the first time on 11 October last year but fell to number two earlier this season before reclaiming her number one spot within one week’s time.
Wozniacki’s six-year professional tennis career is a story of continuous improvement and hard work, as she has been stepping upwards in the world rankings every year since her debut in 2005. The Dane has held the top position in WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) ratings for 38 weeks and has bagged 17 championship titles till date. Despite of such illustrious career, Wozniacki is among the few world number one tennis players who have never won a Grand Slam title.
No doubt Wozniacki is one of the best tennis player Denmark has ever produced and her abilities with the racquet are admired by all but the only criticism the 20-year-old faces is her fruitless runs at the Grand Slam tournaments. She is always slated by critics that the Dane does not deserve to be world number one until she proves herself successfully in the Grand Slam campaigns.
Wozniacki has gathered 17 WTA and 4 ITF (international Tennis Federation) titles but her runs in the Grand Slam tournaments depict a completely opposite image of the belligerent Dane. The best campaign she had at any Grand Slam tournament was in 2009 US Open, when she was seeded at number nine in the tournament and beat all the odds to reach the final. She took on the Belgian, Kim Clijsters, who was making her return to pro tennis after two years of retirement, and got defeated to continue her drought at the major tournaments.
The reigning world number one took off the current WTA season by forcing her way all to the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January, remaining fruitless again, as she was defeated by the eventual champion Li Na of China. She also suffered a third round defeat at Roland Garros this year, submitting to Daniela Hantuchova in straight sets.
The Dane has never gone past the fourth round at Wimbledon Championships, the only grass-court Grand Slam tournament of WTA circle. She was defeated by 24th seed Dominika Cibulkova in this year’s edition of Wimbledon, again frittering away her fans’ hopes of ending her dry run at majors.
It won’t be long that Wozniacki will keep reining the top spot in world rankings without winning Grand Slams, as the other top class players are inching towards toppling her from the number one position. It is fortunate for her that the world number two Kim Clijsters and the third ranked Vera Zvonareva are also having dry runs at Grand Slam tournaments recently. Either of the two can easily dethrone Wozniacki from her rank if they succeed in winning a major title. Li Na is also a strong candidate for the top rank and with her recent form in the game, it is not wrong to say that the Chinese might climb her way to the top in the coming months.
We might see a new world number one at the next Grand Slam event, which is the US Open, if Wozniacki does not end her dry run on the American hard courts. However, if she continues to win the other WTA tournaments and the other top ranked players continue their drought at Grand Slams, Wozniacki might reign at the top spot for a long time.
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