WTA: Wozniacki’s Woe’s

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

     As defending champion of the Dubai Tennis Championship, Caroline Wozniacki found herself with the weekend off when she lost in the semi-finals on Friday to Julia Goerges. It was actually the second free weekend in a row for the Danish player after losing to Lucie Safarova the previous week at the Qatar Open. In Qatar Wozniacki failed to even get past her first match when she lost to Safarova. Starting the year at No. 1, Wozniacki has slid to 4^th in the WTA rankings since losing to Kim Clijsters in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. For someone who has been criticized for not being able to win a grand-slam title, it now appears she is struggling to simply even win.

     Prior to the start of the Qatar Open Wozniacki announced that she was firing her coach of two months Ricardo Sanchez and going back to training with her dad. Sanchez has indicated that he never really had the freedom to direct Wozniacki’s game as he desired. “I was told that I would be free to coach her as I wished, and then I was given very little margin to do so,” Sanchez said. “In just five weeks I went from being a coach to being just a consultant. Her father put together his own training system, and I was pushed into the background.”  

     Perhaps going back to a system and with a coach she is the most comfortable with is what Wozniacki needs to do to get her game back on track. However whatever changes she wants to make, she might want to make them quickly. Since taking over the No. 1 position from Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka has been unbeatable. While an ankle injury forced her out of Dubai, she is 17-0 in 2012 with three wins, one of which was of course the Australian Open. The winner this weekend in Dubai was Agnieszka Radwanska and with her 8^th WTA victory, Radwanska will climb to No. 5 in the world. She has begun the year 15-3 with the three losses coming only to Azarenka.

      Wozniacki will next compete in Indian Wells, which is the first of six tournaments she will enter before Roland Garros.  Six opportunities to hopefully get back on track before possibly silencing her critics with her first grand slam victory. To do so however she will have to get used to not having so many weekends off.

Sources: sports/yahoo.com, wtatennis.com

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

• Tennis
• Sports

This article was written by a WomenTalkSports.com contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own women's sports content.

View Sarah Hallett's Full Profile