Caroline Wozniacki is through to the semi-finals of the US Open following a comfortable 6-0 6-2 win over Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova yesterday.
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Before the U.S. Open began 10 days ago in NY, former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki had gone just 13-14 in 27 matches this season, a season interrupted by a bad sprained ankle which had sent her tumbling down the rankings to No. 74 in the world – her lowest in nine years.
The Dane, a US Open finalist in 2009 and 2014 but unseeded this year after being sidelined for two months by an ankle injury, dominated from the start and wrapped up victory in just under an hour-and-a-half.
But after dropping the opening set of her first-round match against Taylor Townsend at the U.S. Open, Wozniacki has won 10 sets in a row.
“It’s changed because now I know that I can win such a big tournament”, Kerber said.
Wozniacki also endured what has been arguably the most turbulent stretch of her career as she picked up an ankle injury after Miami, forcing her out competition for most of the clay season and has since fallen out of the top 20, now sitting 74th, her lowest ranking in nearly 10 years.
A lot of this feels different than when Wozniacki was the top-ranked player in the world for 67 weeks in 2010 and 2011. Her debut marathon time was good enough for her to qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon, but the Dane superstar said that said that she would not run another marathon for a few years.
But if you’re not all that familiar with Keys, it’s because she is still looking for that breakthrough win at the U.S. Open.
Australian Open victor Kerber is eyeing Serena Williams’ world number one ranking and made relatively light work of Italy’s Vinci.
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.
Kerber leads Wozniacki 7-5 in career meetings but they have never met at a Slam. “She’s No. 2. So probably this is the difference between us”, said the 33-year-old Vinci.
“I was crying [after the match] because it was a great match today and I had some physical problems and I fight a lot and the important thing was to win”, she said. “I’m really happy about the way I played”. “I definitely felt like I got off to a bad start and then I felt like I was trying to catch up from there”.
On Tuesday, she was two points away from taking the first set when she served for it at 5-4, but was broken. The German’s career continued to soar new heights as she contributed a silver medal for her nation at the Olympics and then made the final of Cincinnati a week later.
“When I have my knee, of course, it’s already tough to play against one of the best tennis players”.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s tennis, football, being a lawyer, whatever it is”. I’m sure that she is going to do everything to get that ranking. Injuries haven’t allowed her to play the kind of tennis that enabled her to reach the top of the rankings. But now she’s a major champion, which is something she wasn’t when Kerber last played at the Open.
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If she gets through that, she would face the victor between No. 2 Angelique Kerber and No. 7 Roberta Vinci in the semifinals on Thursday.
