Australian Open: Caroline Wozniacki determined to break duck

The Dane is in a good place, physically and mentally, to step up and take the major title that has always eluded her.

Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki hits a backhand return during a practice session at Melbourne Park yesterday. Picture: AP

You will often see Caroline Wozniacki walking around with a broad smile on her face nowadays — and there are several reasons for the Danish player’s good mood. Gone are the days of persistent misery caused by a series of injuries, and consequently her tennis has improved enormously, so much so that she begins her challenge for the Australian Open as the second seed.

Winning the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore — the women’s version of the male extravaganza staged at the London 02 in November — propelled former world No 1 Wozniacki back up the rankings after she had plunged to the depths of the mid-70s as recently as 2016. She had managed only to get back to 20th position this time last year so has clearly taken huge steps forward.

Singapore produced the most important title of Wozniacki’s career to date and consequently she is back in the top three for the first time since 2012.

Wozniacki, a beaten finalist in Auckland last week, starts her challenge today against the Romanian left-hander Mihaela Buzarnescu, ranked 57. Were she to win the title here in Melbourne, the Dane would enter the record books as the WTA player with the longest gap between spells as world No 1. She first topped the rankings as far back as January 29, 2012, and could reclaim the position on the corresponding day this year.

So, professionally, life is good again, and in her personal life things could not be a lot better. There is a huge diamond ring on the third finger of her right hand after her engagement to former New York Knicks basketball star David Lee. All the angst of her painful breakup with golfer Rory McIlroy is long forgotten.

Yet it is still possible to wipe the smile off Wozniacki’s face with one simple inquiry about whether she has come to terms with the fact that, as she steps up to play her 11th successive Australian Open and 44th major, she is yet to experience the contentment and euphoria of becoming a grand slam champion.

The initial question is met with something approaching a scowl, then the reply comes as almost a mantra ingrained by several sessions with a psychologist or anger-management specialist.

“I know that I have done well and that I have had a great career,” said Wozniacki, who has won at least one WTA title every year for a decade, and pocketed more than $26 million in prizemoney. “I’m proud of my achievements, proud of being able to just fight my way from a little kid to all of a sudden being one of the best tennis players in the world. Very few people can say that, and I’m proud of the fact.”

So how does Wozniacki manage to handle the pressure of still attempting to claim her first grand slam title after so many years, particularly when her close friend Serena Williams has amassed 23 of them?

“I just play and have fun, that’s it,” said Wozniacki, whose best run at the Australian Open came seven years ago when she lost in the semi-finals to Li Na. Wozniacki twice went even closer at the US Open but first Kim Clijsters, in 2009, and then Serena Williams five years later, got the better of her in the final.

She insists that the desire and passion to win remains just as intense and the pressure that she puts on herself has not slackened. “I have always had a target on my back for the other players,” she said. “But I believe that I am a better player now than I was through all those weeks when I was world No 1.

“When you’re in the spotlight so much, when you play on big courts most of the time, when all the other players want to beat you because of where you have been ranked, they try to find new ways. So you have to keep improving and find a way to be ahead of them. It would be much easier if I was a little bit less well known and people didn’t know my game yet. That way you could just kind of go under the radar a little bit but being up near the top, you have to be a step ahead at all times.”

With Serena Williams having recently given birth to a daughter and absent for the fourth straight grand slam, there are many legitimate contenders this year. Current world No 1 Simona Halep is in the same position as Wozniacki. Despite playing consistently enough to be ranked at the top, there is a gap in her CV because she too has never won a major.

By contrast, Garbine Muguruza has won both the French Open and Wimbledon without ever establishing herself as a tournament favourite with the bookmakers, and last year Jelena Ostapenko (French Open) and Sloane Stephens (US Open) proved that major upsets can easily happen.

However, there is little doubt that if Wozniacki plays as forcefully as she did at the end of 2017 — when she rounded off in Singapore with emphatic straight-sets victories against Elina Svitolina and Halep, and a three-set triumph over Caroline Garcia of France before defeating Karolina Pliskova 7-6 6-3 in the semi-finals and Venus Williams 6-4 6-4 in the final — she will take some stopping as she attempts to break her duck

The Sunday Times