AO 2018 WOMEN'S FINAL: (1) Simona Halep vs (2) C. Wozniacki

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ScentOfDefeat said:
Aaaaaaaaand of course this had to happen.
I had pretty much figured it out since the "Fett escape" and the Kerber-Halep semi just confirmed it.

This is tough.
I won't be watching (women's) tennis for a while.
I feel the investment/reward ratio is a little bit unfair at this point, to be honest.
Whatever people say, I think Simona is quite unlucky.
Whenever I think Bartoli has a Wimbledon title (that her opponent just gave her in the final) and Simona has zero (zilch, nada), it just makes me wonder if there's any poetic justice in the world at all.

Of course, I'm trying to look at the big picture (it was a good tournament for her, yadda yadda), but even the fact that Halep lost the #1 spot seems somehow unfair and too tough to handle at the moment. It's almost like the worst thing possible than can ever happen to her at Grand Slam level always tends to happen.

I hope she has a word or two with Clijsters (my favourite player of the last few generations), a similarly nice person who lost her first 4 (!!!) major finals and then went on to win the same amount.

I can't be too optimistic for the future (like most people who are saying "oh, she'll eventually win a Slam") because she always plays close matches and I can never imagine her just cruising to any Slam title, and whenever a match gets tight I just imagine her losing the important points over and over again. I also fear she might be developing a trauma, especially now that she played well enough to win (or at least deserve it) and still lost (agonisingly). Sometimes it feels like there are just too many obstacles to overcome.

However, this has made me more philosophical, in a way.
Of course it hurts, but if you look at it closely, how incredibly human is Simona's story?
We're so used to worship and stories of linear, almost god-like success (Serena and Federer, for instance), and Halep provides another side of the tennis narrative of success.

Success is also a player who tries and tries and tries, and keeps trying.
There's such a huge range of emotions involved in being a Simona fan.
Being her fan is like a pathway to wisdom.
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Well if Halep had won today, you can almost write your whole post for Wozniacki. It was great one of them won but a shame one had to lose.
 
moonballs said:
Well if Halep had won today, you can almost write your whole post for Wozniacki. It was great one of them won but a shame one had to lose.
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But it doesn’t work for Woz. She faced Kim and Serena, both of whom are simply better than her. Simona’s Slam finals matches were actually fairly winnable.

It wouldn’t feel so tragic if Simona lost all three finals to Serena.
 
Ouch! This one had to hurt for Halep fans. In how many slam finals is she going to come so close but no cigar? Credit to Halep for fighting hard until the end though. It could have gone either way. She's so close.
 
skyline said:
But it doesn’t work for Woz. She faced Kim and Serena, both of whom are simply better than her. Simona’s Slam finals matches were actually fairly winnable.

It wouldn’t feel so tragic if Simona lost all three finals to Serena.
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It doesn't matter who Halep loses to. The better player on the day wins, it's that simple. In the past, it was Halep's mentality that was terrible. She choked away too many big matches. But in the past few months, Halep's mentality has been much improved and she has been trying to play more aggressively. Unfortunately, in Woznaicki, Halep came up against a player who is as good as she is defensively and a player who never gives up. It was a good battle by both. It's nice to see Wozniacki win a slam after all these years of hard work and a good attitude. Halep should have more chances in the future. Surely, you would think she will be able to nab a slam at some point in the future.
 
cc0509 said:
Ouch! This one had to hurt for Halep fans. In how many slam finals is she going to come so close but no cigar? Credit to Halep for fighting hard until the end though. It could have gone either way. She's so close.
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cc0509 said:
It doesn't matter who Halep loses to. The better player on the day wins, it's that simple. In the past, it was Halep's mentality that was terrible. She choked away too many big matches. But in the past few months, Halep's mentality has been much improved and she has been trying to play more aggressively. Unfortunately, in Woznaicki, Halep came up against a player who is as good as she is defensively and a player who never gives up. It was a good battle by both. It's nice to see Wozniacki win a slam after all these years of hard work and a good attitude. Halep should have more chances in the future. Surely, you would think she will be able to nab a slam at some point in the future.
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I do feel Simona can nab a slam, at least in Paris.

My comment isn’t meant to put down Caroline. It’s to say it feels like such shame for Simo, who fought so damn hard all the way through this tournament. She faced better players than Caroline and she showed such grit.

She was two service holds away and one feels she would have done it had she not been physically drained.

I credit her, however, for coming that close because she looked incredibly gassed and pained from the beginning of the second set onward.
 
I was basically neutral while watching this match, but dang, modern tennis players are really allergic to the net, Halep was very guilty of this today, it was terrible. She hit some beautiful shots that took Wozniacki way out of position and in my head I would already see her charging forward, only to realise she was still at the baseline hoping Woz wouldn't get to it or she would miss. A winner is a diagnosis made in retrospect, no matter how good a shot you hit, you MUST always assume it will come back and already have a plan for your next shot. I Halep's case, she has great defense, but not as good as Wozniacki's, which is why she should have charged the net more.
 
1 Caroline Wozniacki 7965

2 Simona Halep 7715

3 Elina Svitolina 6085

4 Garbine Muguruza 5690

5 Karolina Pliskova 5445

6 Jelena Ostapenko 4901

7 Caroline Garcia 4495

8 Venus Williams 4278

9 Angelique Kerber 3031

10 Kristina Mladenovic 2935
 
The score was much closer than the match actually was. This was a dominant masterpiece performance from Wozniacki, and the outcome was never really in doubt.
Wozniacki played at an incredible level in the first set (except for her mental lapse when serving for the set). She painted the corners with windshield wiper tactic the entire set.

Halep was almost cooked by the end of the first set, since she had to do so much running to stay in points. Woz's level dropped off in the second enough for Halep to take it, but Woz made her work for it, and Halep was already running out of gas by the end of second. Even though Halep closed out the second, Woz (and anyone watching), knew that it didn't matter and that Wozniacki already had the match won. Halep pretty much had a fork in her by that point.

In the third, the level of both players was lower as the match turned into a physical battle, and the more physically fit player kept inflicting pain until the final tired miss from Halep. Woz was playing safer (further from corners), but still using the windshield wipers until the last ball.

PS. Why do these gals hit swinging volleys when a real overhead is the better tool?
 
Just finished watching the match, funny how Halep stopped screaming parts of the match. And also Woz press conference was slightly cheeky? not sure but too bad for Halep, and she looked a bit too happy to have lost.
 
cc0509 said:
Ouch! This one had to hurt for Halep fans. In how many slam finals is she going to come so close but no cigar? Credit to Halep for fighting hard until the end though. It could have gone either way. She's so close.
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Both women belonged to the close but no cigar club before the match. Someone had to lose. Simona will have more chances I think.
 
Does anyone have a list of the longest women's grand slam finals? This must be up there. I know the 1996 Graf Sanchez Roland Garros final was just over 3 hours. This might be the longest major final played on hardcourts.
 
Great match! Better than the men's. It would have been Woz' time sooner or later and it looks like her marathon training paid off - some of those points were very long where she was running from side to side.
 
DanteTheGreat said:
I was basically neutral while watching this match, but dang, modern tennis players are really allergic to the net, Halep was very guilty of this today, it was terrible. She hit some beautiful shots that took Wozniacki way out of position and in my head I would already see her charging forward, only to realise she was still at the baseline hoping Woz wouldn't get to it or she would miss. A winner is a diagnosis made in retrospect, no matter how good a shot you hit, you MUST always assume it will come back and already have a plan for your next shot. I Halep's case, she has great defense, but not as good as Wozniacki's, which is why she should have charged the net more.
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Agree completely. I don't care for the style of either player, and only watched the last 3 games of the match, all ow which SH lost, obviously. To me, she was luck to even be here, but it's interesting that literally the first time all day that she had a significant lead in the match-up 4-3 with a break-she won no more games, and that defensiveness you alluded to almost certainly contributed to that.
 
britam25 said:
Agree completely. I don't care for the style of either player, and only watched the last 3 games of the match, all ow which SH lost, obviously. To me, she was luck to even be here, but it's interesting that literally the first time all day that she had a significant lead in the match-up 4-3 with a break-she won no more games, and that defensiveness you alluded to almost certainly contributed to that.
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She wasn't lucky to be there, unless one counts absence of Serena and Azarenka as "luck." She fought super hard to get there, through a draw much tougher than Wozniacki's.

I'm really not a fan of defensive tennis at all but I see in Simona potential to be better than that whereas Wozniacki's peak is what it is. Credit to her for improving on her serve and becoming better at controlled aggression but she'll forever be a boring golden retriever on court, more or less. Simona doesn't have to be. It's up to her.
 
britam25 said:
Agree completely. I don't care for the style of either player, and only watched the last 3 games of the match, all ow which SH lost, obviously. To me, she was luck to even be here, but it's interesting that literally the first time all day that she had a significant lead in the match-up 4-3 with a break-she won no more games, and that defensiveness you alluded to almost certainly contributed to that.
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I thought that it was a good match with tremendous effort by both players. If we can't expect an all-court game from the next-gen men, how can we expect it from the WTA. It's been a long time since Steffi Graf.
 
movdqa said:
I thought that it was a good match with tremendous effort by both players. If we can't expect an all-court game from the next-gen men, how can we expect it from the WTA. It's been a long time since Steffi Graf.
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Eh, Henin was an all court player. Serena knows how to use the entirety of the court when she wants to, too.

Don't need to go all the way back to Graf! :-)
 
skyline said:
Eh, Henin was an all court player. Serena knows how to use the entirety of the court when she wants to, too.

Don't need to go all the way back to Graf! :)
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Serena can hit volleys but she doesn't have that natural motion like players of old or guys like Federer. I don't know if it's the big power of the newer racquets or if the women aren't using continental grips but I don't typically see that nice sharp knife on the volley. Yeah, I thought about Henin but I'm more familiar with Graf.
 
Henin is the last female player to play with any style. It would be awesome if some new woman hit the scene and played the one hander, had unreal variety and could hit the big inside out forehand
 
Ray Mercer said:
Henin is the last female player to play with any style. It would be awesome if some new woman hit the scene and played the one hander, had unreal variety and could hit the big inside out forehand
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I'd guess that the style we see in the WTA is what makes them successful when they are younger and they just continue with it into adulthood.
 
MatsPhilander said:
Serena & Roger have 20 odd slams each-they know how to get over the line.
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Exactly. A "lapse" only happens to them when they were being outplayed, and were trying to find their way back in the match. On the other hand, Halep sinks into a tunnelvision of "keep doing what did not work for 3 games" with no plan B or C...like stop running down everything and control the momentum of a game.

SystemicAnomaly said:
I guess you missed my last post. Serena and Roger are among the best if not the best players of all time. And no, the Simona that lost at RG is not the same player who just lost at AO. Not the same situation. I saw some real promise in this match. If you are not seeing it, it probably because you are defining her by her past. She is playing so much more aggressively than she was last year and she is starting to come to the net more than she has in the past.
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I already noted that her coming to net is not natural (it was never encouraged to be a fundemental part of het game), which is why it did not help her much. In order for that to work, she needs to believe in using a net game and all its advantages as much as a player serves. It has to be that locked in, otherwise, its just a recently glued on tool that she will never use effectively against the best in the field.
 
skyline said:
I'm still sad about Simona.
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Caroline markets herself quite well and seems to be a likable person. I think that all ATP and WTA players should do this to some extent. I know very little about Halep but I see Woz in some of my twitter feeds.
 
skyline said:
She wasn't lucky to be there, unless one counts absence of Serena and Azarenka as "luck." She fought super hard to get there, through a draw much tougher than Wozniacki's.

I'm really not a fan of defensive tennis at all but I see in Simona potential to be better than that whereas Wozniacki's peak is what it is. Credit to her for improving on her serve and becoming better at controlled aggression but she'll forever be a boring golden retriever on court, more or less. Simona doesn't have to be. It's up to her.
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Surviving a match point is, generally speaking, clutch, but, IMO, if you survive FIVE match points on the way to a Slam final, 3 of them against a vastly inferior player against whom you shouldn't have gotten into that position in the 1st place, and against whom you had a 15-13 life and death struggle, then you were lucky.
 
movdqa said:
I thought that it was a good match with tremendous effort by both players. If we can't expect an all-court game from the next-gen men, how can we expect it from the WTA. It's been a long time since Steffi Graf.
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As I said, I only saw the last 3 games, all of which SH lost. I think there is a difference between having an all-court game and, like DantetheGreat said, "She hit some beautiful shots that took Wozniacki way out of position" and forcing somebody who is already under pressure by being down a service break to hit a tremendous shot to win the point. And, in view of the fact that her method went quickly from being up a break to losing the match, her way couldn't have failed more abysmally. And, as others have pointed out, Graf was NOT the last all court woman player.
 
tennisaddict said:
The short FH CC put away is what I am talking about .

Serves returns and rally balls are not always returned deeply . Both of them hugged the baseline and it is hard to find the short FH angle from there . If they moved in even 2 steps in front , instead of hitting deeper with a lesser angle they can go short with a finer angle that is impossible to get since the other player is in the baseline .
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To put away, you have to have a ball that can be put away and there wasn't a lot of it. Halep could have converted some of her half volleys into overheads but they would have still been overheads, not short angle CC forehands. Not a lot of players on either tour use the short angle CC forehand regularly, like in every other rally, because they are hitting really heavy balls on the tour. The ball really travels and it takes a genius like Fed to just step in and convert it. And he does it more against someone like Nadal who tries to hit it a bit short to let it spin and kick up. He would find it harder against Djokovic who hits it deep. Woz came up with great depth which made it difficult for Halep to create the angles she wanted. It's what was mentioned earlier in the thread, Woz basically used a Djoko like gameplan - defence that is uncomfortable to attack against.
 
movdqa said:
Serena can hit volleys but she doesn't have that natural motion like players of old or guys like Federer. I don't know if it's the big power of the newer racquets or if the women aren't using continental grips but I don't typically see that nice sharp knife on the volley.
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Serena is not share the same volleying skill of Laver or McEnroe, but she knows and executes it like the pro she is, which was not only developed in her successful doubles career, but in singles, which allowed her to take advantage of players who were unprepared for that kind of game, or--if they played the net--falsely believed she was not capable of handling their game.
 
movdqa said:
Caroline markets herself quite well and seems to be a likable person. I think that all ATP and WTA players should do this to some extent. I know very little about Halep but I see Woz in some of my twitter feeds.
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Agree that Caro appears to be a very likable person. Don't know much about twitter except that the king of twitter appears to be some eccentric head of state who is known in some circles as Mogul or POTUS (and has the initials DT). But from what I've seen in various videos and articles, Simona comes off even more likable than Caro. She is something of a rock star in Romania yet very family-oriented. I don't speak the language, but I've seen a few Romanian vids of her that yields some insight as to how popular she is there. Appears to be a very decent human being. She's been involved with quite a few charities in the recent past and has also worked several kids clinics -- in Romania, the US (Connecticut) and Asia (Singapore). Simona's game has apparently has been inspired by the likes of Henin and Federer.


https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/...or-the-hills-to-support-charity-day-1-8021437
https://www.tennis-prose.com/bios/biofile-simona-halep-interview/
 
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I like Wozniacki, and I'm glad she finally won a slam. But I find myself disappointed for Halep, and I usually don't even root for her. I feel like a Simona fan today, just disappointed. Here's hoping she'll get the French this year.
 
MatsPhilander said:
I saw what looks like advertising about sports psychology to buy CD'S etc. She actually needs somebody to work with her on a regular basis like O'Sullivan has in Snooker. The reality is that at 26 she likely doesn't have that long left at the top level of the game-she has lost three slam finals, two semis & five quarters in the last four & quarter seasons. It is obvious she has clinchers disease & needs outside help to overcome it.
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That really wan't the link that I was looking for. I saw something about Simona's mental outlook in an article on the WTA site last year but can't seem to find it now. Also saw a few articles from UK papers/sites from last year that 'indicated that she has been working with a sports psychologist (and other sources say that she has been reading books on psychology herself for the past few years).

From what I saw in the AO final, Simona has come closer than she ever had previously to grabbing a slam title. In her post-match interview she indicated that she was very happy, overall, with the mental side of her game in the tournament this year. She felt that her body/pain let her down rather than her attitude in the final. What she said in that interview about the mental side of her game was pretty much what I observed from watching that match.

26+ is not really too late for her to achieve the elusive slam title. Woz has been on the tour for a year longer and just got her 1st slam title at 27.5 años. I believe that Bartoli and Li Na were around 29 or 30 before they earned slam titles. Note also that Kim Clijsters did not win a slam title until her 5th slam final (in addition to 3 other SF finishes).
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luiz_gustavo said:
And they both saved Match Points along the way! Halep saved three against Lauren Davis (Round 3) and two more against Kerber (Semi Final). Wozniacki saved two match points against Fett (Round 2).

I wonder what was the last GS final that both finalists saved MP?
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Amazing how many times the champion in Australia has survived match points en route to the title:

1991 Seles
2002 Capriati
2003 Serena
2005 Serena
2014 Li Na
2016 Kerber
2018 Wozniacki
 
travlerajm said:
The score was much closer than the match actually was. This was a dominant masterpiece performance from Wozniacki, and the outcome was never really in doubt.
Wozniacki played at an incredible level in the first set (except for her mental lapse when serving for the set). She painted the corners with windshield wiper tactic the entire set.

Halep was almost cooked by the end of the first set, since she had to do so much running to stay in points. Woz's level dropped off in the second enough for Halep to take it, but Woz made her work for it, and Halep was already running out of gas by the end of second. Even though Halep closed out the second, Woz (and anyone watching), knew that it didn't matter and that Wozniacki already had the match won. Halep pretty much had a fork in her by that point.

In the third, the level of both players was lower as the match turned into a physical battle, and the more physically fit player kept inflicting pain until the final tired miss from Halep. Woz was playing safer (further from corners), but still using the windshield wipers until the last ball.

PS. Why do these gals hit swinging volleys when a real overhead is the better tool?
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What match did you watch ?!
britam25 said:
Surviving a match point is, generally speaking, clutch, but, IMO, if you survive FIVE match points on the way to a Slam final, 3 of them against a vastly inferior player against whom you shouldn't have gotten into that position in the 1st place, and against whom you had a 15-13 life and death struggle, then you were lucky.
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Just because someone is ranked lower doesnt mean that he is "inferior", if you had watched the match you would know how well Davis played. Federer saved match points against Benneteau in route to Wimbledon 12, the same thing with Mayer for Shanghai 14. Djokovic saved match points against Seppi at RG 12. Wawrinka escaped match points against Evans and after went to beat Del Potro, Nishikori and Djokovic in order to win the title.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Agree that Caro appears to be a very likable person. Don't know much about twitter except that the king of twitter appears to be some eccentric head of state who is known in some circles as Mogul or POTUS (and has the initials DT). But from what I've seen in various videos and articles, Simona comes off even more likable than Caro. She is something of a rock star in Romania yet very family-oriented. I don't speak the language, but I've seen a few Romanian vids of her that yields some insight as to how popular she is there. Appears to be a very decent human being. She's been involved with quite a few charities in the recent past and has also worked several kids clinics -- in Romania, the US (Connecticut) and Asia (Singapore). Simona's game has apparently has been inspired by the likes of Henin and Federer.


https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/...or-the-hills-to-support-charity-day-1-8021437
https://www.tennis-prose.com/bios/biofile-simona-halep-interview/
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I'm on twitter mostly for financial stuff. There are a bunch of hedge fund managers on twitter and having access to these guys can be helpful for my trading. You can also tweet to players and sometimes they reply. Andy Roddick is pretty good at that sort of thing. The other thing about Wozniaki is that she's a runner and I identify with running and she's also run in the NY Marathon.

I think that Sharapova markets herself more than any other WTA player and has more product lines and maybe does more promotional work than anyone else - though admittedly she had a lot more free time recently. The thing that turns me off with Sharapova, though, is the on-court shrieking. But she has a ton of female followers. So I don't know much about Halep - but I'll look into her background at some point.
 
https://ausopen.com/match/Simona-Halep-vs-Caroline-Wozniacki-WS701
scoreboard.com/game/halep-simona-wozniacki-caroline-2018/hhx4F1O6/

travlerajm said:
The score was much closer than the match actually was. This was a dominant masterpiece performance from Wozniacki, and the outcome was never really in doubt.
Wozniacki played at an incredible level in the first set (except for her mental lapse when serving for the set). She painted the corners with windshield wiper tactic the entire set.

Halep was almost cooked by the end of the first set, since she had to do so much running to stay in points. Woz's level dropped off in the second enough for Halep to take it, but Woz made her work for it, and Halep was already running out of gas by the end of second. Even though Halep closed out the second, Woz (and anyone watching), knew that it didn't matter and that Wozniacki already had the match won. Halep pretty much had a fork in her by that point.

In the third, the level of both players was lower as the match turned into a physical battle, and the more physically fit player kept inflicting pain until the final tired miss from Halep. Woz was playing safer (further from corners), but still using the windshield wipers until the last ball...
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Methinks you were watching the match with Woz-colored glasses.

Or perhaps you were watching a match feed from an alternate universe. "... the outcome was never really in doubt"? As @Bukmeikara suggests, this doesn't sound like the match that we were watching. The momentum of the match went back and forth between Simona and Caroline quite a few times during the course of the match -- in all 3 sets. The outcome was never certain -- it could have easily gone the other way. There were times that Caro appeared to be rather annoyed/irritated as she felt her match dominance slipping away. She played in a very reactive mode whenever Simona started pushing her around. But excellent defense from Woz. OTOH It was obvious that, most of the time, Halep was playing the more aggressive game (40 winners vs 25 winners for Woz). She was also playing a gutsier, higher-risk game (more UEs as well as more winners).

Simona actually won more games than Caro and nearly as many points (108 vs 110). Much has been said about Caroline's new improved serve lately -- bigger and well-placed. Caro was top 10 in aces in 2017 and is currently top 4 or 5 for this year. However, Simona's serve was at least as good, if not slightly better than Caro's. Her serve speeds on 1st and 2nd serves was only slightly lower than Caroline's. However, Simona hit more aces yet got more 1st serves into play. 61% (SH) vs 58% (CW). 6 aces & only 1 DF for Simona vs 2 aces & 6 DFs for Caro. But then Caroline was better at attacking 2nd serves.

travlerajm said:
... PS. Why do these gals hit swinging volleys when a real overhead is the better tool?
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It could be that swinging volleys are much easier on shoulder health than real overheads. Sharapova and others also often hit more high/swinging volleys than overheads. Many players want to save the shoulder for the serve. For the serve, there is more torso coil, leg drive and often a greater racket drop (ESR) than the overhead. These diffs tend to offload stress to the shoulder for the serve.

From what I saw, Simona's use of the high/swinging volley was very effective. Don't see that hitting a real overhead would really buy her much more.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
That really wan't the link that I was looking for. I saw something about Simona's mental outlook in an article on the WTA site last year but can't seem to find it now. Also saw a few articles from UK papers/sites from last year that 'indicated that she has been working with a sports psychologist (and other sources say that she has been reading books on psychology herself for the past few years).

From what I saw in the AO final, Simona has come closer than she ever had previously to grabbing a slam title. In her post-match interview she indicated that she was very happy, overall, with the mental side of her game in the tournament this year. She felt that her body/pain let her down rather than her attitude in the final. What she said in that interview about the mental side of her game was pretty much what I observed from watching that match.

26+ is not really too late for her to achieve the elusive slam title. Woz has been on the tour for a year longer and just got her 1st slam title at 27.5 años. I believe that Bartoli and Li Na were around 29 or 30 before they earned slam titles. Note also that Kim Clijsters did not win a slam title until her 5th slam final (in addition to 3 other SF finishes).
.
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I'm 99% sure she has been working with a sports psychologist and i think it shows even if it didn't translate into a win this time. Cahill alluded to it in some interview toward the end of last year (regarding: Kevin Anderson using the therapist) and spoke of the psychologist by name (florida-based woman if i recall). From the way he was talking if you read between the lines, he all but said that Simona also was using the therapist. From her post Aus Open Final interview, IMO she used the kind of talk that working with a sports therapist would encourage, such as the way that she characterized her performance in the match and took the positives. I'm pretty sure that at points last year she spent time in Florida (which maybe she always does, that I don't know) but for some reason I connected that she is probably both tennis training and mind training. At the time I looked up the psychologist and she sounded pretty prolific with sports stars although due to privacy etc a lot of the names can't be revealed but you could tell she's the real sh*t.

Tennis is great in that not only does the physicality, training, game strategy and talent of the player factor into who wins but that mental strength plays SUCH a huge part and you see it break down all the time and know it's the difference between who wins and who doesn't for some matches. I think it's most prominent in women's matches which make sense because of biologically they are more connected to their emotions so it will affect them more on the whole. So to try to mitigate this as a problem with a sports therapist is very smart. I feel like almost every one can benefit from this so it would be silly not to take advantage of it as part of your training if you had the finances and important to make time for it in your training as it does play an important part.
 
I was not a particular fan of Wozniacki before this match, but that final earned her my respect because I was impressed by her strategy adjustments at different points in the match. I still maintain that the outcome was never really in doubt from about the halfway point of the second set.

It might not have been easy to tell for the casual observer at that point, because that was when Halep was winning majority of the points; But I believe that Wozniacki sensed the high-percentage-of-victory opportunity and visibly changed her strategy mid-second set when it became obvious that Halep was gassed: she stopped going for the lines to play longer more physically taxing points, playing more margin but still alternating cross-court/down-the-line in the rallies to make Halep cover a lot of ground. Near the end of the second set, when Wozniacki was several points away from possible straight-sets victory, my thought at that point was that it didn't really matter whether Halep dug in and won the second set or not, because there was no chance she would be able to outlast Wozniacki in the third. Even when Halep won 3 games in a row in the middle of the third set to go up 4-3, it reminded me of those horror movies where the mortally wounded killer rises up one last time and staggers around before finally succumbing. Halep was doubling over with hands on her knees after every point. Of course Wozniacki could see that -- she stood tall and ready to return while waiting for Halep to serve, even on points she lost. Credit for Halep for not giving up, but this was not going to be her day.

Halep will clearly win a slam soon. She is very talented, but she has a very different set of talents than Wozniacki, and Wozniacki is a terrible matchup for her. So is Kerber, and she was lucky to survive that one.
 
Last edited:
travlerajm said:
It might not have been easy to tell for the casual observer at that point, because that was when Halep was winning majority of the points; But I believe that Wozniacki sensed the high-percentage-of-victory opportunity and visibly changed her strategy mid-second set when it became obvious that Halep was gassed: she stopped going for the lines to play longer more physically taxing points, playing more margin but still alternating cross-court/down-the-line in the rallies to make Halep cover a lot of ground. Near the end of the second set, when Wozniacki was several points away from possible straight-sets victory, my thought at that point was that it didn't really matter whether Halep dug in and won the second set or not, because there was no chance she would be able to outlast Wozniacki in the third. Even when Halep won 3 games in a row in the middle of the third set to go up 4-3, it reminded me of those horror movies where the mortally wounded killer rises up one last time and staggers around before finally succumbing. Halep was doubling over with hands on her knees after every point. Of course Wozniacki could see that -- she stood tall and ready to return while waiting for Halep to serve, even on points she lost. Credit for Halep for not giving up, but this was not going to be her day.
Click to expand...

I saw those marathon points and already knew that Woz would not have any stamina issues because she's a runner.

82460_slideshow_std_h_CarolineWozniacki___Serena_Williams___TCS_New_York_City_Marathon.jpg
 
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