Top ten Tennis matches of 2011 – Part 5
Caroline Wozniacki ‘shines’ on Hard Court
19-year-old Caroline “Sunshine” Wozniacki entered the year as one of the top five players on the Women Tennis Association tour.
She was seeded fourth at the Australian Open and despite a fourth-round loss to Chinese pro Li Na, she was still able to climb to World Number 3 at the end of the tournament.
Her next step up the ladder came at the Indian Wells event, where she rose to World Number 2 after reaching the final. She also won her first WTA event of the year at Ponte Vedra Beach. After this, she suffered an injury at the Family Circle Cup which forced
her to retire from her match against Vera Zvonareva.
The injury affected Wozniacki’s career to a certain degree. Her ankle slowed her down, but she was still third seed at the French Open. Wozniacki proceeded to the fourth round where she was eliminated by eventual champion Francesca Schiavone.
Wozniacki was seeded third again at the All England Lawn Tennis Club where she made it to the fourth round before being ousted by Petra Kvitova in a definitive 6-2, 6-0 defeat.
After this event, she was seeded first at the Danish Open. She won the title, raising her total number of trophies in 2010 to two. After this, the Dane began her campaign to seize the World Number 1 spot. Serena Williams had already withdrawn from several
tournaments, including the US Open. Wozniacki utilised this opportunity to compete in more and more tournaments and amass a lot of points.
In Cincinnati, Wozniacki was defeated by Marion Bartoli in the third round. She was seeded second at Montreal, where she won the title by defeating players such as Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva. She topped this victory with another one at New Haven.
Her last achievement before the start of US Open was her successful campaign at the US Open Series.
Since Serena Williams was no longer in the running, Caroline Wozniacki was seeded first for the year-ending tournament. She played her matches like a World Number 1 player throughout her campaign, cruising through the first three rounds without dropping
a single set.
She met former World Number 1 Maria Sharapova in the fourth round, and beat her in straight sets. Her next conquest was Slovak Dominika Cibulkova, who fell 6-2, 7-5 to Wozniacki in the quarterfinals.
The Danish player was finally halted in the semi-finals, when Vera Zvonareva defeated her 6-4, 6-3. Although she could not make the final, yet she managed to reach the fourth round or better in every Grand Slam in 2010.
However, she managed to gain the World Number 1 ranking after two more tournaments she won in Tokyo and China. She is the fifth woman to hold the position without a Grand Slam title, and the first Danish woman to climb the rankings this high.
Her 2011 campaign is bound to be interesting to say the least. She will be going in determined to win a Grand Slam title in order to silence critics who feel she lacks what it takes to become a true champion.
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