On Saturday night she went the absolute distance to beat Elena Dementieva in the semifinals, and Sunday she continued to show why she could be the next No.1 player in the world. Caroline Wozniacki won her Sony Ericsson WTA Tour-leading fourth title of the season at the Pilot Pen Tennis at Yale, beating Nadia Petrova in the final,6-3 3-6 6-3.
Wozniacki, the No.1 seed and undefeated two-time defending champion at the Premier-level event, was leading 6-3 2-0 when Petrova's power game started hitting its mark; she took the second set and pulled off another mini-comeback with Wozniacki leading 4-1 in the third set, breaking back and closing to 4-3. But Wozniacki was too tough in the end, playing two strong games to win her fourth title of the year and the 10th of her blossoming career.
Wozniacki maintained her perfect record in New Haven, now at 13-0 (5-0 to win in 2008, 5-0 to win in 2009 and 3-0 to win this year, a first round bye and quarterfinal walkover from Flavia Pennetta cutting her hours this year).
"Today was especially tough because yesterday I finished really late," Wozniacki said. "In the second set Nadia started hitting some nice winners, and she broke my serve straight away. I just needed to keep focused.
"The crowd has been amazing here, cheering me on. Yesterday I was down and they got me through it. It's a great feeling. I love this tournament - it has been great preparation for me the last couple of years. I'd love to come back."
Wozniacki has now won her last two tournaments - Montréal and New Haven - and three of her last four, including Copenhagen. Her only loss of the summer came to Marion Bartoli in the third round of Cincinnati.
1 comment:
Good summer for "The Big Stuffed Bunny". I don't know how quickly she can recover, she has played too many tough matches before USO. Lucky for her Pennetta pulled out. I aways been critical of "The Bunny" for playing too many tournaments. RG 09 she crashed and burned as well as the YEC where she was hampered with injuries.
Demetieva takes the cake this woman goes toe to toe with "The Bunny" having previous played two, three hour matches. Why couldn't she conserve herself? For a veteran to do this either she is waving the white flag for the slams or she is viewing regular tournaments as more important than slams, maybe I'm exaggerating. However at the USO I see her going out early (second round). The reason that I thought Caro would win 6-2, 6-3 because I thought "The Demented One" was too smart to play three consecutive marathon matches. By losing I thought she would try to conserve her energy level; I know, the point of playing is to win but the situation merited for her to keep the eye on the big price: USO. Imagine if her matches that she played at this tournament were instead played at the USO, everyone would be talking about her run.
It was also a nice run for Petrova first final of the year. She needs more accuracy on her shots and stop being a head case (easier said than done).
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