Caroline Wozniacki's woes at the French Open and majors in general continued Wednesday as the former world No. 1 was ousted in the second round by Bojana Jovanovski, 7-6, 6-3.
At a distance, this is a shocking result. Wozniacki is currently 10th in the WTA rankings— Jovanovski is ranked 47th.
However, it is not really all that shocking. The 22-year-old has looked like anything but a No. 1 player this year. Entering the French Open she had a singles record of just 16-12 on the year and has yet to claim a title. These results are just part of a diminishing trend. On top of that, as Sports Illustrated points out, Jovanovski has given Wozniacki trouble before.
Jovanovski finished with 33 winners to Wozniacki's 13, broke Wozniacki three times and won 77 percent of her first serve points. She will advance to play Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round
Wozniacki finished last year with a 50-21 record and two titles. That came a year after she had six titles and went 63-17 overall.
Tennis analysts Ben Rothnenberg tweeted about her disappointing year.
However, even when Wozniacki was in better form, she has never fared well at the French. While Wozniacki covers a lot of ground and moves well, something that is a staple of great clay-court players, she lacks power.
More and more, power is taking over at the French, and Wozniacki is at a bigger disadvantage in this department on clay. While the clay is slower than hard and grass courts, it also eliminates power players can generate off of returns.
Wozniacki has always used this to her benefit as she is great in volleys and has a nice ground stroke.
As a result, Wozniacki has never made it past the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, which she did in 2010. Last year, she was ousted in the third round to Kaia Kanepi, and she fell in the third round at the French Open the year before that.
Given all of this, Wozniacki has to be thrilled that the tennis action is moving away from clay. Heading into this year's French Open, she was just 2-5 on the year on the slick surface, and for her career, she was just 65-26 on clay.
So, Wozniacki will now turn her sights towards the remainder of the season as she looks to regain her form and capture the first major of her career.
No comments:
Post a Comment