Caroline Wozniacki definitely made the right choice to come out of retirement and try her hand at the professional tennis again. She moves on to the third round at Flushing Meadows by beating two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova 7-5, 7-6 (5) in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night.
“This couldn’t be better,” Wozniacki said. “It’s a dream come true. If you had asked me three years ago, I would have said I’ll never be back here, playing on this court.”
Wozniacki, the US Open runner-up in 2009 and 2014, needed 2 hours and 8 minutes to take down Kvitova.
The 33-year-old from Denmark won the Australian Open in 2018. She reached No. 1 in the rankings during her first stint on tour. Wozniacki left the sport in early 2020 to start a family with her husband, former NBA player David Lee. She later spent time working as an analyst for broadcast television.
Currently No. 623 in the world, she returned to competition this month and now is back at Flushing Meadows for the first time since 2019.
“I love New York — this court. I love everything about this city and playing here,” said Wozniacki, who said she planned to spend time with her children on Thursday. “Absolutely, as soon as I came here over a week ago. I already instantly felt so comfortable on these courts and knew that I could play some great tennis and I would be dangerous in the draw.”
The familiarity with the event certainly helped. This is the third event of Wozniacki’s comeback. She looked quite certain of strong play in her 15th career matchup against the 11th-seeded Kvitova. There were some hiccups, including when Wozniacki held her first two match points at 5-4 in the second set and failed to convert both.
Kvitova had 38 winners to Wozniacki’s 22, but Wozniacki played the more polished match. Wozniacki only hit 13 unforced errors, while former World No. 2 Kvitova tripled that number with 39.
In the tit-for-tat first set, both players exchanged breaks to begin. They would stay dead even with unforced errors on baseline exchanges. Wozniacki eventually took a 6-5 lead by holding with two consecutive aces. In the next game, Wozniacki hit a hefty service return on her second set point. This forced an error and ended the opening set after 63 minutes.
The second set would see much of the same play. Kvitova saved two match points at 5-4 before the players moved into a tiebreak. In the decider, a return winner gave Wozniacki a healthy 4-1 lead. She held on from there, closing out the match after a long return by Kvitova.
“Three years ago if you’d asked me, I didn’t think I was ever going to play on one of those courts again in the US Open.
Wozniacki’s most recent Top 20 win came over Kvitova as well. She beat the Czech at the 2018 WTA Finals nearly five years ago.
Wednesday’s result marks Wozniacki’s 40th career match-win at the US Open. She is the first player from Denmark to accumulate 40 career wins at the US Open in the Open Era (since 1968).
Wozniacki advances to a third-round match. She will face another player seeking a comeback campaign, former Australian Open finalist Jennifer Brady of the United States.
Stay tuned for more breaking tennis coverage and updates.
Featured Image courtesy of US Open
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