To an inexperienced tennis fan, initially it may have seemed that eleventh seed Caroline Wozniacki would quickly take out uninspired world No.1 Serena Williams, but the American stole the momentum midway through the second set and toiled her way to the Rogers Cup semifinals.
Conversion of one and only break point Wozniacki earned in the first set, in the fifth game, turned out to be enough for her to straightforwardly take the set. It may seem strange, but Wozniacki wasn’t broken once in the set and actually Williams earned just two break points, while trailing 4-5.
The story didn’t change early in the second set, as Wozniacki soon ran to a 4-2 lead, but the momentum shifted at that moment and after leveling to 4-4, Serena soon found herself at 5-4, leading for the first time in the match, and not long afterwards the set was hers, 7-5.
The third set was the most tightly contested and the two times Williams broke Wozniacki’s serve, the Dane fought right back. But despite Williams wasting two match points while leading 6-5 40-15, Wozniacki was too weak to turn the result around and the leopard-clad Williams broke her for the third time in the set to record a 4-6 7-5 7-5 victory.
Next quarterfinals on the schedule, in the following order: Carla Suarez Navarro vs. Venus Williams, Coco Vandeweghe vs. Ekaterina Makarova, Victoria Azarenka vs. Agnieszka Radwanska.
Have you enjoyed our coverage of the 2014 Rogers Cup so far? Our photographer Jimmie48 finished his work at the tournament. I think we have the most expansive Rogers Cup galleries of all the news sources. Here you can see them all, from newer to older:
- Thursday third-round action and upsets of Kvitova and Sharapova
- Wednesday‘s second round matches and progress of favorites
- Tuesday‘s shock of Eugenie Bouchard’s exit
- Rogers Cup kicks into higher gear on Monday
- Busy Sunday in Montrael
- Action gets underway on Friday
- Thursday – preparation for the Rogers Cup
I’ve also added all these photos to Women’s Tennis Blog’s Facebook page (feel free to “Like” the page!), while my favorites are in Women’s Tennis Blog’s Pinterest board called “WTA Action Shots”.
very positive wozniacki out there. Full of confidence . I wish she didn’t let serena break her late in that second set nevertheless very impressive caroline especially on her serve but she was against mighty serena with her classic comeback spirit. Hopefully she’ll carry this attitude through out this year.
P.s I’m so happy venus won against serena. I really want her to win this tournament and improve her ranking and confidence