Caroline Wozniacki Finds Solution to Overcome Giorgi in Eastbourne Opener

Former Eastbourne champion and current Australian Open winner Caroline Wozniacki opened her campaign with a promising straight-set win over Italy’s Camila Giorgi, 6-2 6-3, in the second round of the Nature Valley International in Eastbourne.

This is a matchup that has really bothered the Dane over the years. The biggest of losses for Wozniacki came in the 2013 US Open third round, where Giorgi delivered one of her standout performances to date, but Wozniacki has managed to get the better of her on the grass and now has won three matches in a row on this surface against the Italian.

Giorgi actually made a stellar start. She possesses a rather unique game-style and stands alone in the way that she takes to the court in each and every match. The Italian takes aggression to the next level and plays each and every ball and each and every point full throttle and worries about the consequences later. That approach put her into a quick 2-0 lead and she was minimising the unforced errors that she was making even while sticking to her only way of playing. The approach she knows best and owns it. Wozniacki responded like a true champion and waited for the opportunities to come her way. As much as Giorgi can play lights-out tennis on her day, the Italian gives a lot of easy points away because of the risks she chooses to take in any position on the court.

Wozniacki started to find her rhythm in just her first match on the grass this season and started to adapt to the fast paced game-style of Giorgi. Wozniacki upped the first serve percentage to a more respectable number and that gave her more chances to get her clean, smooth backhand side into play, which she did with great success to turn the first set around and win all of the next six games to take the set, 6-2.

The opening games saw Wozniacki struggle to place her game onto the court and she found herself playing defence way too often, but what will be pleasing to the Australian Open champion is how she found a way to get her weapons into play for the rest of the match and how she was able to connect with her backhand down the line often enough to change the course of the rally. That helped substantially at the beginning of the second set, where she eventually salvaged a double break lead, wobbled momentarily when serving for the match, but finished the match off confidently to advance to the third round.

With no previous grass-court matches on this surface in 2018, it was important for Wozniacki to get some matches under her belt as going into the third major of the year with just one loss to her name would have really halted her chances of doing well at Wimbledon. There was room for improvement in terms of the way that Wozniacki begisn matches, but she took her chances when they came and waited for the Giorgi level on serve to dip on the critical points, which worked out well for Wozniacki.

Giorgi made a total of eight double faults, with most of them coming at the back-end of service games and sometimes even coming one after the other, but hit 29 unforced errors to Wozniacki’s 11 unforced errors. The Dane kept a fine balance between her winners and unforced errors which proved a big difference in this match.

Wozniacki was ever so pleased to get a real test in her first match on grass and felt her game was mostly in a good place in terms of her level, but also from where she is from a mental standpoint.

“Yeah, definitely tricky opponent. She started off well. I didn’t get a first serve in on my first service game, and I was kind of in trouble. Was lucky to break her back to that 2-1 game, and then I kind of found my way into the match and started playing I thought some good tennis. I feel pretty good about it. I think the first match on grass is always a little tricky and you just need to get into it. I feel good. I feel mentally I’m where I want to be.”

The newly-crowned Australian Open champion also talked about the overriding feeling she has after winning that first major after all the question marks, all the concerns and all the doubts of whether she would ever reach the top of the mountain.

“I think, you know, you get there and you realize that nothing changes. You still have to grind it out every single day and every single week. You know, there is pressure on you to win everything. But, you know, it took me a while to get that first Grand Slam, and I think for me, you know, just to know that I have that, you know, even if I stop my career tomorrow or whatever it is, you know, it just feels great to basically have a complete résumé. I think that gave me kind of a more relaxed approach. But at the same time, you know, you’re a competitor and you want to win everything and you want to keep improving. But at the same time, it feels so nice going into a press conference or into a Grand Slam and being, You know what? You cannot ask me that question again and how it feels because I have actually done it.”

It definitely feels like the pressure is off Wozniacki and she can now go into each and every Major knowing that her main goal has been accomplished and she has finally become a Grand Slam champion.

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