Overnight: How Caroline Wozniacki finally became a Slam-winning No. 1

On Friday, Caroline Wozniacki announced that she'll retire after next month's Australian Open, the tournament where she won her lone major title. The former No. 1 had been hearing about not winning a Slam for years, but in 2018, she did so in spectacular fashion. This story about that match, against Simona Halep, explains just how spectacular the moment was.

Caroline Wozniacki and Simona Halep had traveled long distances to reach this moment together.

In their nearly 20 combined years on tour, the 27-year-old Dane and the 26-year-old Romanian had ran and retrieved and counterpunched and fought their way to No. 1, but neither had won a Grand Slam title.

Over the previous two weeks, they had saved match points—twice, in Halep’s case—and survived near-certain elimination. They had forced themselves to leave their defensive comfort zones and play the kind of attacking tennis they knew they needed to play to finally break the Slam curse.

On this night in Rod Laver Arena, Wozniacki and Halep had come in knowing that, without a Serena Williams or a Maria Sharapova on the other side of the net, this might be the best chance they would ever have to break that curse. And they had played like it.

For more than two hours, they had pushed and pulled, attacked and counterattacked, advanced and fallen back, gained leads and watched them vanish. Neither could shake herself loose from the other. Halep had her blood pressure checked, and even as she tried to ignore an earlier ankle sprain, she found herself hobbled by a new leg injury. Wozniacki had her knee taped, and as the third set tensely progressed, she appeared to tire in the 90-degree evening heat in Melbourne.

For a few games in that third set, it looked as if neither woman was going to be able to summon the energy to cross the finish line. The shots that had found the corners earlier had begun to find the net. Would the Australian Open women’s event, which had been so thrilling and hard-fought over the last fortnight, end with a whimper? It deserved better, and it got it, as Wozniacki and Halep both raised their games one last time.

Wozniacki jumped out to a 3-1 lead, only to see Halep surge back to 4-3. Now it was Wozniacki’s turn to respond, and she did, in the same way that she has been responding since her title-winning run in Singapore last October. Instead of defending and waiting for misses, she counterpunched with authority; instead of scrambling and retrieving, she hit penetrating shots while she was on the run.

At 3-4, Wozniacki sent a hard running forehand down the line to set up break point; a minute later, she broke with a hard running forehand down the middle. At 4-4, Wozniacki won two points with aggressive down-the-line backhands. Finally, with Halep serving at 4-5, Wozniacki reached match point by going from defense to offense over the course of a long, wild rally. She took Halep’s best and sent back forcing shots of her own, and she was rewarded for it.

“That was a crazy point,” Wozniacki said of the next-to-last rally. “I think we both played very well. I had that backhand crosscourt. I knew at that point I have to hit it hard, I have to just go for it crosscourt. It went a little shorter than what I had really thought I was going to do...I was like ‘Wow, that’s a great shot. I’m going to take it.’”

Wozniacki’s other two Grand Slam finals came on the relatively quick hard courts at the US Open; this year she benefited from the speed that the Australian Open has gradually added to its own surface.

“I was just going to go out there and give it may all and swing for it,” a relieved, elated, tearful, grinning Wozniacki said later. “I was playing aggressively. I think I played well. It could have gone either way today, but I’m glad it went my way.”

“When I saw the ball go into the net,” Wozniacki said of Halep’s final backhand, “it was crazy emotional.”

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While the Grand Slam monkey is off Wozniacki’s back, it remains painfully attached to Halep’s. She didn’t squander a lead or suffer an upset this time, as she did against Jelena Ostapenko in Paris last year; but her three Slam finals have all ended in three-set defeats. Halep had come so far over these two weeks, battling through an ankle injury and saving match points to win the two best contests of the tournament, over Lauren Davis and Angelique Kerber. And she had battled back again to force a third set against Wozniacki.

But whether it was physical exhaustion or mental hesitation, or some combination of the two, Halep couldn’t bring herself to take the final step. Serving at 4-5 in the third set, she double faulted for the only time all match. And while she would hit 40 winners to Wozniacki’s 25, it was Wozniacki who went after her shots and connected on them over the final three, title-deciding games.

“I can smile. It’s fine. I cried, but now I’m smiling,” said Halep, who is nothing if not honest and straightforward about her feelings in defeat. “Is just a tennis match in the end. But yeah, I’m really sad I couldn’t win it. I was close again, but the gas was over in the end. She was better. She was fresher.”

“I felt ready, but the body was not ready after so many long matches.”

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Halep didn’t win the tournament, but in many ways she was its star; while her fight fell short, it was the story of the fortnight. Over the last six games against Kerber especially, she found a level of controlled aggression that she had never found before, and which should serve her well in the future. For an allegedly defensive player, Halep played a lot of offense Down Under. And if she needs inspiration to continue her Slam quest, she can get it by remembering her opponent’s journey.

“I think that’s one of the most positive things about all of this,” Wozniacki said, when she was reminded that now, no one can ask her, “When are you going to win a Grand Slam?”

In 2016, Wozniacki entertained the idea of retiring, but her commanding, undefeated performance against the world’s best players at the WTA Finals in Singapore last fall removed any doubts that we, or she, might have harbored about her ability to win a major title.

The question was, could she play with that same aggression at a Slam? Could she do what players like Serena Williams always do, fight for it as she it was rightfully hers? It took her a decade, but Wozniacki gave us the answer last night.