Caroline Wozniacki defeats Francesca Schiavone at Doha, seizes World Number 1 title
Current World Number 1, Danish player Caroline Wozniacki defeated Italian pro Francesca Schiavone in a three set match on Thursday, as part of the Maroon Group round-robin matches. With this 2-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory, the top
seed has confirmed her place as World Number 1 at the end of year championships in Doha on the Women’s Tennis Association rankings till the end of the year 2010.
The 20 year old succeeded against Schiavone, who is ten years her senior, to confirm her place in the semifinals of the Doha event, which is worth 4.5 million US dollars. However, more importantly, she has confirmed that
she will end the year on the top of the global rankings. She tripped briefly a day before this match, falling to Samantha Stosur in a straight sets defeat, which is highly unusual for the player. Wozniacki is yet to win a Grand Slam; however, she sped up her
performance towards the end of 2010 with five tournament wins out of the seven she played in, and dethroned American former World Number 1 Serena Williams, who has not played since her Wimbledon triumph in July. With this achievement, she becomes the 10th women
to gain ascension to the top spot in the Open Era.
Wozniacki seems grateful and happy over her success, saying, after her match with Schiavone: “It's something I've dreamed about since I was a little girl. I'm very proud what I have achieved this year.”
The round-robin match with Schiavone lasted just over two hours, with the 30 year old player taking the first set. She beat Wozniacki down with a 6-2 victory, with the distinctive attacking style that led to her first Grand
Slam victory this year, the French Open at Roland Garros. However, despite her initial firepower and strong attack, her game began to falter with errors becoming abundant while Wozniacki began to level with her opponent, after developing a better understanding
of her modus operandi. Wozniacki, who at 20 is ten years younger than Schiavone, managed to win herself an early break in the third set and never backed down, closing her competition out on the fourth match point.
Wozniacki is the first Dane to become World Number 1 on either the WTA or the ATP. She was in need of two victories at the season-ending tournament in Doha, to insure her spot as the top player by the end of the year. The
only player, who at this point had a chance of defeating the 20 year old, was Russian Vera Zvonareva but after the Schiavone victory, Wozniacki has eliminated all such possibilities. Her first match at Doha resulted in a crushing victory over Elena Dementieva,
after which she suffered a surprise loss against Sam Stosur. Although the defeat gave Zvonareva brief hope, Wozniacki quickly fought her position to reassert herself as WTA’s Number 1. Since Wimbledon 2010 in July, the Danish player has collected a 31-3 win
loss ratio in the seven tournaments she has played, and has amassed titles such as the China Open and the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
This has been Wozniacki’s best year to date; she acknowledges this, saying, “2010 has been the most amazing year in my career during which I realised my dream of becoming the world number one. Capturing the year-end world
number one ranking is a huge accomplishment for me.”
In the history of the game, only three other players were younger than Wozniacki when they ended the year ranked World Number 1. These players are Martina Hingis, Monica Seles and Steffi Graf, who were all younger than 20.
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