Caroline Wozniacki may be more beleaguered than ever at work—as critics ask loudly about the top ranking three players could snatch away by tournament’s end—but Anna Tatishvili wants her job. It says right there in her WTA bio that her “goal is to be No. 1.”
Who knows what will happen someday, but Wozniacki was better today. Mostly, anyway. Though Tatishvili played above her No. 83 ranking, Wozniacki won, 6-1, 7-6 (4). The match, like her atypically lovely dress, which came up in the post-match interview, wasn’t ordinary. What it was is a tale of two sets.
The first was a straightforward, 28-minute affair in which Wozniacki played as error-free as ever but more aggressively than usual. Sure, it was her style of aggression, not Serenesque but forceful in its own way. There were the two short, angled backhand winners she hit in a row in the fourth game. And the aces—she served one in every game that set (and nine in the match overall). She finished the set with nine winners and just four errors.
The second set was a wilder ride and, at 81 minutes, a much longer one. Wozniacki grew meeker, while Tatishvili attacked. Tatishvili showed she favors offense, hitting the ball flat and hard, but that she could manage defense too, moving well enough to stay in longer rallies. By the fourth game one commentator remarked that she was “hitting the ball fearlessly” and maybe “in the zone out here.” The problem for Tatishvili, as for many of the women who face Wozniacki, is that she couldn’t maintain that for long stretches—and she couldn’t keep the errors at bay.
Tatishvili's errors caught up with her in the tiebreaker, contested after Wozniacki recovered from a 1-4 deficit, saved a set point, and took a medical timeout for a blister on her left big toe. Both played tense tennis, but it was Tatishvili who made seven errors in those 11 points. Fittingly Wozniacki won the match—just as she fought off a set point down 4-5—when Tatishvili made a forehand error.
And so with some skill but also, in the second set especially, with help from Tatishvili, Wozniacki pulled off the type of win that will be harder to get in the second week.
Tatishvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, but since the age of 13 has been living in Boca Raton, Florida and practicing at the Chris Evert Academy. Evert herself had a lot to say about Wozniacki while commentating her first-round match against Anastasia Rodionova. Evert praised her fitness and fight but criticized, not surprisingly, her lack of “that big weapon” and, more surprisingly, her movement. Evert said Wozniacki likely knows all this “because we’ve all told her on TV.”
By now you probably know that Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, and Maria Sharapova could take over the No. 1 ranking based on how the tournament shakes out. Wozniacki must reach the quarterfinals to even have a shot at keeping the top spot. But at a Grand Slam especially, three rounds ahead is two rounds too many to consider. Next up for Wozniacki is a third-round match against the crafty Monica Niculescu or the alliterative Pauline Parmentier.
—Bobby Chintapalli
