The Caro watch: what’s ahead for Wozniacki after Paszek loss

 

So where does Caroline Wozniacki head after her 5-7 7-6 6-4 loss to Tamira Paszek in the first round? Hopefully not to the Irish (golf) Open to watch her BF Rory McIlroy where she will be unable to get athletic competitions out of her head. She does need to hit the practice courts eventually and work on the transformation of her game with her new coach, Thomas Johansson, but she sure looks emotionally exhausted to me and was said be crying hard after her loss. She needs vacation, away from all the strings and grips.

In the Paszek match, outside of the big points in the third set, she showed a lot of positives with her first serve and forehand, two areas she need a whole lot more pop. But now, unlike 2009 and 2010, when she gets deep into third sets against non super elite players she panics and loses site of her game plan.

No. 7 Wozniacki had two match points at 6-5 in the second set, only to see the Austrian take big cracks at her off the ground. But Caro had chances. “She wins a close first set and is ahead in the second, but then relaxes and gets too passive, especially with her forehand,” Johansson told Ekstra Bladet. “She goes back to her old style, and just runs and runs. On one of her match points, she gets a bad second serve, and there she has to dare to cut loose. The second serve in women’s tennis is vulnerable, and there’s room to take the initiative.”

On the final point of the match, she floated a forehand into the mid court area for Paszek to feast on, as if the Austrian was going to miss the ball when she had been drilling forehands down the line all day long. The Austrian

Leave a Reply