After Ana Ivanovic was beaten 6-0, 6-0 by Roberta Vinci, fellow Serbian and former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic fared little better, but at least the Montreal crowd had something to cheer for as Canadian wild card Aleksandra Wozniak backed up her first-round upset of Daniela Hantuchova with a solid 6-2, 6-3 win over the thirteenth seed.
Jankovic made a bright start to the match, opening with two clean forehand winners and earning four break points in Wozniak’s first service game. Unfortunately, after failing to convert any of them – primarily due to solid if not spectacular serving by Wozniak – the rest of the match was a tale of woe for Jankovic. Double-faulting three times to go down 0-40 as she served at 0-1, she gave away the initial break with an errant backhand and was in danger of going down a double break as she buried several cross-court backhands in the net. Jankovic did hold eventually to stay in touch at 1-3, but the number of framed, mis-timed and generally poor shots coming off her stronger wing didn’t bode well. She played two strong points to get to 30-0 serving at 1-4, but consecutive double faults pegged her back and another framed backhand saw Wozniak serving for the set at 5-1.
Against Hantuchova, Wozniak struggled to serve out the match but came through despite her nerves and it was much the same story here, playing a poor game to be broken back for 2-5 but regrouping as a drive volley which missed by feet let her into Jankovic’s service game and she took advantage with an improvised passing winner and strong returning for a 6-2 first set. With Jankovic struggling to get the ball in the court – she made 23 unforced errors against 7 winners in the first set – Wozniak needed to be patient, aggressive and above all solid. She managed all three magnificently, hitting with consistent depth and being resolute in coming forward when she had the opportunity. Jankovic’s poor penetration and lack of any consistency on her groundstrokes didn’t allow her to exploit Wozniak’s major weakness – movement – and the Canadian struck four clean winners to break Jankovic at 15 and lead 3-1 in the second set.
From there, it was all about Wozniak holding her nerve and her serve, not helped by hints of rain and a medical timeout from Jankovic, after which they played an 11-deuce game in which Wozniak wasn’t able to press her advantage and the Serb held for 2-4. Wozniak needed two more service holds and came up with the goods, playing a beautiful succession of forehands ending with a backhand volley winner to get herself out of trouble at 4-2, 30-30.
Serving out the match, Wozniak played tentatively, but at deuce came up with a forehand winner then a big serve to seal a fine win. With Maria Sharapova’s withdrawal, the Montreal native will face the winner of lucky loser Galina Voskoboeva and Christina McHale in the next round and has an opportunity to delight her home crowd again, continuing the best Rogers Cup run of her career.