This time Caroline
Wozniacki on cusp of first Grand Slam title
Caroline Wozniacki conquered her mental demons yesterday to be one win away from an overdue Grand Slam women’s singles tennis title.
The Danish star and world No 2 ended the run of unseeded Belgian Elise Mertens with a 6-3 7-6 (7-2) win in one hour and 37 minutes.
And Wozniacki will have a strong chance against world No 1 Simona Halep in tomorrow night’s title showdown at Melbourne Park after a hurt Halep won a crazy slugfest against Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
The Romanian won the deciding set 9-7 as she battled immense physical pain. She didn’t so much march to victory as crawl there. “I’m shaking now,” Halep said afterwards, such was her fatigue after staving off two match points to win 6-3 4-6 9-7. “Definitely was very tough. I’m really emotional.”
Both women had their chances to put the match away in the 68-minute-long third set. Halep was serving for the match at 5-3, but was broken after Kerber ended a 26-stroke rally with a backhand winner that just clipped the line. Kerber then fell to her knees and put her forehead on the court in exhaustion.
Halep had two match points in the next game, but Kerber saved the first with a backhand down the line and the second when Halep hit into the net. After Kerber broke to take a 6-5 lead, she then had two match points of her own, but Halep saved them both and then broke back to level the match at 6-all.
Kerber saved a third match point before Halep finally converted on the fourth when the German sent a ball long.
Like Wozniacki, Halep will also be chasing an elusive first grand slam triumph.
Wozniacki waltzed through the first set and broke Mertens to take a 5-4 lead in the second. But in shades of 2011 when she blew a match point in her semifinal against China’s Li Na, Wozniacki started to choke. She admitted she’d been “haunted” by that result and said it came up again when she lost eight points straight to give Mertens a 6-5 lead in the second.
“I was here in the semifinals in 2011 and I was serving for the match against Li Na and I had a match point, and I lost it and that was definitely on my mind out there today,” Wozniacki said.
She felt her experience proved the difference against an opponent playing in Melbourne for the first time. “Obviously I have been here before. I’ve been in this situation before.”