I do want Woz to win a slam and I do believe she can win a slam at some point, but at which point? Yes, Woz is still young, there's lots of room for improvement etc. But it doesn't work that way when you're on the tour battling day in and day out, you don't have the space nor the time to radically change the player that you are and grew up into. What you can do is you can fill in some game, adjust what you do have. How much space does Woz have? She doesn't have another ten good years to stay at the top. My guess is she has about another three best years or so or within about another 200 to 250 matches in her physical prime to win her slam, still as a top favourite, before the injury phase sets in with all the accumulated wear and tear and before she knows it she's down in the rankings all beaten up and struggling hard, just like Ivanovic, Safina, Sharapova, Jankovic, Dokic..... etc. She can still come back after that but she will only once in a while will she have an outside chance of having a good two weeks, going all the way and winning a slam. You just don't have that many matches when you are at your physically freshest to spend. Woz isn't a golden oldie like a Schiavone nor a special case like Li who spent a long time bottlenecked in her national system, taking time off for study for two years because of disagreements with her national coaches and then only within these two years has she gotten "real" coaches capable of advising her at the level of contending for Slams that she is now playing at. And Li herself is also very beaten up with her three right knee operations.
Why spend up your best matches when you are at your freshest on things like e-boks SE? Why waste time beating up people like Falconi, Brianti and Kerber? You wouldn't be meeting them in the QF, SF and F of Wim, will you? And winning against that sort will not increase your confidence, it will decrease it because now you don't know how you will do when you next face Lisicki, Gorgeous, Kvitova and Serena. After your physically peak years, it gets harder and harder and you win less and less. Like this year, you lost early at RG, so play Birmingham and rest before Wim. If you got into the second week and later rounds like Maria, Li and Schiavone, rest a week then play Eastbourne. Maria withdrew only because of illness. Or Ana who played both, desperate for match play and trying hard to play herself into winning form. But an indoors HC before Wim when everybody else is playing the preparatory grass events? Really should have gone to Birmingham with Lisicki and Ana there, Lisicki whom you lost to on grass two years ago and then on to Eastbourne with such a draw there almost a mini Wimbledon which will probably be significant how the big one itself plays out. Hence all the bad jokes about Woz invitational, Woz Open, Caro's pajama party and so on.
So how many of her best opportunities does Woz have left? Within 3 years she has about 12-14 slams to spend her peak freshness on. But you have to cut about half of those since she's an HC player, not a grass or clay player where in RG and Wim she may be top seed but it will be a surprise if she actually wins one of those, not that she cannot, but many, many stars will have to be VERY favourably aligned indeed. About 8 to 10 AO and USO slams and maybe one or two RG or Wim till the end of 2014 that she can realistically have a chance of winning between one to three of those is my guesstimate.
