If Caroline Wozniacki wants a shiny, silver Porsche she’ll have to buy it herself, because the one propped up above the red-clay court at the Stuttgart tournament now belongs to Julia Goerges. And for good reason—playing in front of a home crowd today, Germany's Goerges outplayed Wozniacki on the clay she rolled around in after winning the match by a score of 7-6 (3), 6-3.
This is Goerges’ second WTA title (her first at the Premier level), and she’s the third German to reach the final here. (Anke Huber won it, while Steffi Graf was runner-up.) Goerges will debut in the Top 30 next week, likely at No. 27. With German Andrea Petkovic ranked even higher, for the first time since Graf retired two Germans will be in the WTA Top 30.
Some days it’s easy to forget Wozniacki can be beaten, and not just by a few top players currently out after walking on broken glass and dancing dangerously. Today wasn’t one of those days. Wozniacki wasn’t at her best—she made more errors than usual and didn’t move as quickly—but it wasn't that. Goerges just played better than Wozniacki and better than she herself usually does. It was Goerges’ match to win or lose, and she won it by hitting winners off both sides from many parts of the court. In all she hit 38 winners to 29 errors. Woznaicki hit nine winners to 10 errors, but it felt like she erred more than that.
It was a good match, especially in terms of serving. There was only one break of serve (Wozniacki was broken in her first service game of the second set) and one double-fault (by Woznaicki in the first set). Goerges had a 70 percent first-serve percentage, and Wozniacki had an even more impressive 87 percent.
It was, as Tennis Channel’s Corina Morariu predicted yesterday, a match of “contrasting styles”—Goerges with her “big, modern game, serving well, hitting hard off the ground” and Wozniacki with her “more consistent, more defensive” style. That big, modern stuff can be hard to execute consistently, but Goerges did that today.
Wozniacki, for her part, has seemed tired lately, on court and off. “I see Wozniacki fighting, but I don’t see a spark in her,” said the Eurosport commentator. Surely it was due to something besides her 8 A.M. run today. It may have more to do with all the matches she plays because of all the events she enters and goes far in. (Tennis Channel showed a screen with the data, titled ‘What a Grind!’.) Could it also have a little something to do with all the No. 1 stuff, the obligations, the press, the talk, the pressure? Who knows, but perhaps a loss like this will motivate Wozniacki, who has more firepower than some acknowledge, to become more aggressive in time for the two Grand Slams about to roll around.
Speaking of the Slams, one of Goerges’ goals for the year was to be seeded at them, and now she almost certainly will be. She’s had a great week, perhaps motivated and encouraged by the home crowd, Germany’s recent Fed Cup success and the success of her countrywomen, especially Petkovic. (That said, I’m puzzled and disappointed by stories notifying us that Goerges is not jealous of Petkovic. Not because I don’t believe it, but because I can’t believe this is a story. When two women from the same country are doing well, surely we can find other things to ask and write about first?) In any case, Goerges had a great day. If she can keep this up, as Morariu said, bigger things may await her: “She played like a Top 5 player today, and that’s the kind of potential she possesses…We just wonder if she can maintain that level of play on a consistent basis.”
Goerges commented that a few years ago she sometimes found herself on court thinking, “Whoops! There’s a top player in front of me and what am I doing here?” If someone on court was thinking that today, it probably wasn’t Goerges.
—Bobby Chintapalli