Attack of the flying ants/ Bugs get to Wozniacki
● World No 2 and recent Eastbourne winner suffers shock defeat by Makarova and insect invasion
Second seed Caroline Wozniacki was angered by flying ants as she crashed out of Wimbledon. For the second year running the All England Club was hit by an invasion of the insects, with Wozniacki’s match against Ekaterina Makarova on Court One bearing the brunt. At one stage Wozniacki asked f or some rep ell ent spray and was heard telling the umpire, “You want to focus on playing tennis and not eating bugs ”, as the ants buzzed around her.
The ants flew in and Caroline W oz ni ac ki flew out. On Flying Ant Day ( it is a thing), the world No 2 was removed from the Wimbledon draw in a flurry of Ekaterina Makarova forehands and a cloud of insect repellent.
As the Australian Open champion, the world No 2 and the newly crowned queen of Eastbourne, the traditional grass court warm-up event f or Wimbledon, Wozniacki thought she had a chance of improving her fairly dismal record in SW19. She has been coming to the All England Club for a dozen years now and yet she has never made it beyond the fourth round.
This year was even worse: her 6- 4, 1- 6, 7- 5 defeat at the hands of Makarova was only in the second round.
The ants, thousands of them in search of a mate and a new nesting site, made their appearance in the first set, buzzing around t he players and the officials and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
They were everywhere and had no regard for ranking or status–they were, quite literally, getting up everyone’ s noses.
“We’re here to play tennis, no tea t bugs,” Wozniacki moaned to the umpire, Kelly Thomson. “They are around my mouth, my hands–it’ s really creeping me out.”
Thomson requested help: a bottle of insect repellent. Makarova doused herself with the stuff and then went back to doing what she had been doing from the off: pounding Wozniacki into submission. She was playing out of her skin and it was driving t he Dane out of her mind.
But then Makarova made a schoolgirl error. The momentum was with her; she was making mincemeat of the woman who had beaten her in seven of their previous eight meetings. And yet she decided to stop proceedings and take a bathroom break. When she came back, she was a shadow of her former self and Wozniacki ran away with the second set. That was when Makaro - va headed for the ladies again and returned in much the same form as she had shown in the opening set.
By this point, the ants had taken the hint and moved onto another court. Unable to blame them for her woes, W oz ni ac kit hen called for the super visor to inspect the court. According to her, it was drizzling and the court was wet. After a cursor y wipe of the grass with her palm, the super visor decreed that both the weather and the court were just fine. Much as she could not bear to admit it, Wozniackiw as just losing, plain and simple.
Only when it came to closing out the match did the Russian world No 35 get nervous and from 5- 1 up she saw five match points come and go before she converted her sixth and finally relaxed. Makarovaw as through to play Lucie Safarova on Friday.
“When I look at the draw, there’s 90 per cent of everyone else I would have played today, I feel like I would have won,” Wozniacki said. “The last 10 per cent, I feel like I would have had a chance or a good chance. Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. Sometimes it just doesn’t flash. Things just don’t add up.
“Today I played someone who played extremely well. I don’t know that she would be able to keep up this level for the rest of the tournament.”
The ants were not the cause of her downfall, she thought, although they were “definitely a first for me here” but she was still flicking them from her bag as she stomped off court in double quick time. Breaking t he Wimbledon etiquette of waiting for her opponent and walking off together, Wozniacki was off court quicker than a bug dodging a fly swat.
AT A LOSS
“Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. Sometimes it just doesn’t flash. Things just don’t add up”
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI