Wozniacki crushes Dementieva at WTA Championships
Caroline Wozniacki has lived up to her top billing in her first round-robin match at the WTA Tour Championships, showing no mercy in her 6-1, 6-1 victory over Elena Dementieva.
The new world No. 1 arrived in Doha having won the title at five of the last seven tournaments she has played, including victory over Dementieva in the Tokyo final, and if her first match is anything to judge by is intent on adding another, even if today’s victory came against an opponent who entered the match with questions over her fitness.
Despite stating pre-match that the ankle problem that forced her to pull out of Luxembourg last week was “better”, Dementieva was seemingly still hampered by the injury during her clash against Wozniacki.
The Russian started the match by making the tactically strange decision to attempt no less than three drop shots in the opening game, which she duly lost, then opened her first service game with a double fault, before losing that one to love.
They were ominous early signs and Wozniacki’s easy service hold to take a 3-0 lead didn’t improve the situation for Dementieva, who finally got on the board in the fourth game of the match.
A second break of serve, however, wasn’t far away and came when down 30-40 Dementieva’s challenge to a ball she thought had landed behind the baseline was shown by Hawkeye to have landed on it in the sixth game of the match.
The seventh, predictably enough, also went Wozniacki’s way as she chased down another drop shot to hit the winner and take a one set lead after just 24 minutes.
The second set began with Dementieva clawing back from 0-40 down to hold serve, but that was just postponing the inevitable, with the Dane breaking for a 2-1 lead in the third game of the set.
The early advantage established, Wozniacki didn’t take long to wrap up an easy victory, her 24th in 25 matches, as she made the perfect start to her Doha campaign.
Earlier, Vera Zvonareva was a 6-3, 6-0 winner over former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic, while in the final match of the day, Samantha Stosur took some revenge for her French Open final defeat by Francesca Schiavone, turning a 0-4 deficit in the first set of their round-robin match into a 6-4, 6-4 win.
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