Caroline Wozniacki and her career after becoming World Number 1
With the Women’s Tennis Association tour over and the season ending with Kim Clijsters taking away the WTA Tour Championships in Doha, it has been relatively quiet on the women’s tennis front.
However, this does not by any means imply that the champions of 2010 have been forgotten or overlooked till the New Year.
The end of year World Number 1, Caroline Wozniacki, failed her first major tournament as the WTA’s golden girl, when Kim Clijsters beat her at Doha to take away the championship title.
While this is an admirable feat on Kim Clijsters part, the fact remains that she is a player, who has come back from retirement to play part-time. And even when at the apex of her career she was more likely to let her fans down with defeats than give them
something to celebrate at major events such as the end of year championships or the Grand Slam tournaments.
While the above assessment may seem derogatory for both Wozniacki and Clijsters, there is a different way to look at the result of these championships.
Kim Clijsters seems to be taking former World Number 1 Serena Williams’s example a little too seriously, entering the fray to bag major tournament titles without playing in many tournaments throughout the year. To illustrate this, it is apt to consider that
Clijsters has won five of the mere eleven tournaments she competed in this year. She also won three of the four tournaments she played after Wimbledon.
On the other hand, there is Caroline “Sunshine” Wozniacki, who has no doubt worked untiringly to earn her Number 1 ranking. She has had victory at five of the last eight tournaments she entered in this year. It is not unreasonable to expect that she will
become better as her career progresses.
However, there are still certain factors, which may point to impending failure on the horizon of Wozniacki’s currently bright future. She is the second player on the WTA in three years to end the year as World Number 1 despite the lack of a Grand Slam title.
Her predecessor was Jelena Jankovic in 2008, and she has been unable to play at the same level since being crowned. Research and a look at the history of tennis tells us that superb players build up to their Number 1 rankings by winning Grand Slams, Wozniacki
seems to be doing it the other way round.
Although Wozniacki put her best foot forward at the Doha final, she is faced with a certain dilemma. The three events of her last eight, which she has been unable to win, were all taken away by Kim Clijsters. Add to that, these tournaments were the most
important ones on the WTA calendar for the summer and fall seasons.
While Wozniacki is not to blame for the recent absence of top players, she would be taken much more seriously if she could manage a good record against them. As far as her record against some of the best players in the tennis world is concerned, she has
only won five of a total of twenty-five matches played against them.
These players are the Williams sisters, Amelie Mauresmo, Justine Henin, Ana Ivanovic, Lindsay Davenport, Dinara Safina, Martina Hingis, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jankovic and of course Kim Clijsters. Three of those wins were against Kuznetsova, in comparison,
recently retiring player Elena Dementieva (whose highest ranking was World Number 3) has won 44 matches to 74 losses against these same players.
However, Wozniacki has a lot of plus points for her career. For one, almost every player she has been defeated by is either retired or will retire soon, this will leave the playing field open for her, and she will surely succeed. She is dedicated to her
sport and seems to enjoy it. However, she will need to prove that she deserves the slot she has fought for within the first half of the next year.
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