Wozniacki to face Dementieva in Tokyo final
This Friday, World Number 2 Caroline Wozniacki defeated Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in a three set upset with a last minute comeback, winning the semi final with a final score of 6-2, 6-7, 6-4. This victory seals a place for
Wozniacki, who is first seed at the Toray Pan Pacific tournament, at the event’s final match.
Elena Dementieva will be competing against the top seeded Dane in the title match. Russian Dementieva defeated 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone in the other semi final, playing a match in straight sets to defeat the Italian tennis pro 6-4, 7-5.
Wozniacki defeated eighth seed Victoria Azarenka after three sets. During the match, both players experience problems with their serve. Wozniacki suffered four double faults, whereas Azarenka had thrice that number at 12. One of these faults allowed Wozniacki
to even up the score from the second set to 6 all, before Azarenka won the tie breaker, making a third set for the match necessary. Wozniacki commented, about this part of the match, “The third set was really tough. It was like a new match, a new game.”
During the third set, Wozniacki began to lead the match with a 5-love score, making fans almost sure of her victory, before Azarenka stepped it up and quickly added four points for herself to the tally, kicking it up to 5-4. After the match, Wozniacki told
reporters, “At 5-love, I felt really good, I thought the match was mine.Then Victoria started playing well and all of a sudden the score is 5-4, and I knew I had to close it out with my serve.”
Azarenka’s take on the match was similar. The tennis professional player from Belarus, who has beaten Caroline Wozniacki twice before, commented on the difficult of returning to a successful set after being driven into a 5-love disadvantage. The WTA player
said, “I may have come back from 5-1 or 5-2 before, but never 5-love. I lost my concentration, but it’s hard to keep your concentration for that long.”
World Number 2 Wozniacki is next slated to appear in the final against World Number 10, Elena Dementieva. Seventh seed Dementieva has so far defeated Yaroslava Shvedova, Flavia Pennetta, US Open finalist and second seed Vera Zvonareva and French Open champion
Francesca Schiavone at the 2010 Toray Pan Pacific Open. Caroline Woznacki, on the other hand, has scored victories against Greta Arn, 16th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6th seed Agnieszka Radwanska, prior to her victory against Azarenka.
The match between Wozniacki and Dementieva may well turn out to be the longest match at this tournament yet, keeping in mind that both players tend to hold much longer volleys than any other players on the tour. In matches against each other, the two players
have an equal record of 3 all. Wozniacki won 4 WTA titles in 2010, whereas Dementieva holds two.
If the number one seed, Caroline Wozniacki, defeats Dementieva at Tokyo and makes it to the quarter finals or better at the China Open in Beijing next week, she stands a chance to overtake Serena Williams as the World Number 1 on WTA rankings.
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