The pressure of reaching the top spot in the women's game without having a Grand Slam title to
show for it proved too much for Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic in recent years. When Safina
rose to the top ranking last year only to to succumb to vertigo, Serena Williams observed darkly:
"We all know who the real number one is." The hapless Russian has yet to recover from the experience.
So, no matter how many tour titles she claims, no one will believe Caroline Wozniacki is the best
player in the world until she wins a major. She is, however, determined to fulfil expectations.
"Definitely winning a Slam would be a target and a goal," she says. "I've reached the number one
ranking, so the next one definitely would be a Slam. Over the last 12 months I think I've improved
physically and in my game, a little bit on everything. The experience I've gained has done a lot.
I've been playing really well and I believe I can beat anyone on a good day, but it's not going to
be easy. To win a Grand Slam you need to win seven matches in a row, so it's tough but I believe
it's possible."
If the Dane can adopt a more attacking style, it should not be beyond her, especially if she can
improve her results against the other main contenders. As things stand, she has a losing record
against Serena Williams (0-2), Venus Williams (0-4), Kim Clijsters (0-1) and Justine Henin (0-1).
"I think she has a game that's physically demanding," says Clijsters. "She's not like a Serena who
will hit a lot of winners and aces. She really has to fight for almost every match she plays."
She can certainly fight. At the 2009 WTA Championships in Dubai, she qualified from her round robin
group with an emotional and physically draining win over Vera Zvonareva. After two medical time-outs
to treat cramp in her left thigh during the third set, she was just two points from victory when
she collapsed to the court sobbing and clutching both legs. If anyone had helped her, she would have been disqualified, so she endured the agony of her entire body twitching with cramp, got back up and
clinched the win after 2 hours 48 minutes in sweltering humidity. "I have absolutely no idea how I
pulled it through, but I'm very happy about it," she said at the time. Unfortunately, the effort
took its toll and she was forced to retire against Serena Williams in the semis.
At the 2009 US Open, only a beggarly handful of spectators in the Louis Armstrong stadium witnessed
her tears of joy as she became the first Danish woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final. Rain
delays had dictated that her semi-final against Yanina Wickmayer coincided with Clijsters and Williams
hogging the limelight in the adjacent 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium. "Maybe actually it was easier,"
Wozniacki said after the match, "because you didn't really feel that you're in the semi-finals."
The Dane may have lost in the final but she won plenty of plaudits as she handled the
post-match duties with class and dignity. Along with the denouement of the Clijsters comeback story,
this served to repair the image of women's tennis damaged so savagely by Serena's disgraceful lapse.
Showing off her multilingual skills at the presentation ceremony, the daughter of Polish parents
fluently and graciously paid tribute to her opponent in three languages, English, Danish and Polish.
When she won the Wimbledon girls' title in 2006, Wozniacki's speed around the court and resolute
defensive qualities marked her out as a future force on the WTA Tour. She made her Tier I-debut
as a wild card at the 2007 Pacific Life Open and won her first tour title at the Nordic Light
Open in Stockholm just over a year later. Her father, Piotr, and Danish national coach, Morten
Christensen, share the coaching duties.
Wozniacki's sporting genes are obvious. Her father played pro soccer in Poland, Germany and
Denmark; her mother, Anna, played volleyball for the Polish national team and her brother,
Patrik, has followed in Dad's footsteps into the world of professional soccer. She also
enjoys handball, soccer, swimming and watching golf. When she is not preoccupied with sport,
she is likely to be found shopping, reading (especially Harry Potter books) or listening to music.
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