“I know it sounds bad, but honestly, at this point I’m like, I really don’t care what my ranking is”, the unseeded Wozniacki said.
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He ranking coming into NY was 74.
But despite the brilliant week, talk of the 26-year-old retiring has begun swirling. Down 3-0, she requested medical attention from a trainer, who wrapped Sevastova’s right ankle with tape at her chair on the sideline. Yet she struggled with it when she needed it the most on Sunday, just 58 percent of her first-serve points in the first set.
And now she waits two days for a date with her friend Angelique Kerber, who she knows for years. Wozniacki needs the win to prove that she’s a force once again on tour, not to mention that her ranking needs the points that come with making a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Karolina Pliskova, the tall and athletic 24 year-old Czech, saw off the challenge of 18 year-old Croatian Ana Konjuh to make her first Grand Slam semi-final, in which she will tackle Williams or Halep. “She made me run a lot”.
World number 48 Sevastova, who briefly retired from the sport in 2013, has matched her best run at a Slam – a fourth round spot at the Australian Open in 2011. “Back then I was just trying and grinding for staying at the top of the rankings for as long as possible”, added the Danish star who keeps a second home in NY.
Wozniacki will face either eighth-seeded American Madison Keys or Japan’s Naomi Osaka in the last 16 and said she needed to continue to play aggressive tennis. “She looks fit, so it’s going to be a tough one”. “She was a better player anyway”. “To be honest right now, my head isn’t anywhere”, she said.
Making a push to move up from No. 2 in the rankings, and to earn a second grand slam title of 2016, Kerber moved into the semifinals at Flushing Meadows in NY by taking the last nine games in a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Roberta Vinci, last year’s runner-up. That resulted in a double-fault that ceded the set. “She’s confident and does not miss so many balls”, said Vinci.
“I know that when I play my best I’m tough to beat and I just do my thing”, said the 74th-ranked Wozniacki, who will next meet Latvian Anastasija Sevastova, a 6-4 7-5 victor Britain’s Johanna Konta. She’s a hard worker, ‘ said the Dane.
“Now obviously I want to win every match, but it’s different”.
Kerber in contrast to rival the semi-finals this season holds at the highest level, only for the last month after playing in two finals at the Olympic Games in Cincinnati.
“I was injured and not having fun and I was kind of depressed, but now I’m back”.
“It feels great”, she told the press after the win. “But it just feels so good to me to be out on the big court and somewhere where I feel so comfortable and familiar”, concluded a smiling Wozniacki.
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Wozniacki climbed to world number one in 2010 but her troubles have seen her drop outside the top 50 this year for the first time in nearly a decade.
