{"id":5748,"date":"2017-12-31T11:29:22","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T16:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=5748"},"modified":"2017-12-31T11:29:22","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T16:29:22","slug":"caroline-wozniacki-takes-brengle-auckland-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/12\/31\/caroline-wozniacki-takes-brengle-auckland-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Caroline Wozniacki Takes On Brengle in Auckland Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caroline Wozniacki has conceded five games in two hard court matches against 27-year-old American Madison Brengle<\/strong><\/p>\n

It Should be Straightforward for Wozniacki<\/h3>\n

The first match of the season is always a difficult one, but the Dane<\/strong> couldn’t really have chosen a better opponent herself. On paper, this opening match for the Dane in Auckland has the look of a title holding boxer hand-picking an opponent, ahead of a big unification fight.<\/p>\n

Brengle, #84<\/strong> in the world, had a good but unspectacular season in 2017–winning on clay in Charlottesville (justifying her #1 seeding) and making the last 32 at Wimbledon<\/strong>, where Caroline Garcia<\/strong> ended her challenge. This sums up Brengle really, she struggles to cope with top 20 players. It is hard to see her bettering that record in Auckland<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Wozniacki needs to avoid repeat of Wuhan<\/h3>\n

You only need to go back four tournaments for a warning sign that Wozniacki should not underestimate opponents. The dangerous 22-year-old Grecian, Maria Sakkari,<\/strong> upset Caroline Wozniacki in the 1st round at Wuhan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This shock came after the Dane strode to the title in Tokyo<\/strong>. Technically, Wozniacki is in the same position here. Her last competitive match came against Venus Williams in the WTA Finals<\/a>. Granted there has been a great deal more recovery time.<\/p>\n

The Journey to a Slam, starts with a Single Win<\/h3>\n

Given the blistering end to last season – all eyes will be on Caroline Wozniacki at the start of a new one. Can she finally break that Slam duck?<\/a> All signs are positive, but the world, will want to get in as much match practice as possible before heading to Flanders Park.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wozniacki could return to World #1<\/h3>\n

An early tournament victory would be just the tonic for Wozniacki. It would send out a clear sign to her rivals that she is one of the ones to beat at this year’s Australian Open. <\/strong>It is entirely possible that a good start to the season could mean that Wozniacki could take place in Melbourne as the world #1, depending on what happens elsewhere. Now that would be something!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caroline Wozniacki has conceded five games in two hard court matches against 27-year-old American Madison Brengle It Should be Straightforward for Wozniacki The first match of the season is always a difficult one, but the Dane couldn’t really have chosen a better opponent herself. On paper, this opening match for the Dane in Auckland has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2169,"featured_media":5679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2324,1334,488,305,15],"class_list":["post-5748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-auckland","tag-carolina-wozniacki","tag-madison-brengle","tag-maria-sakkari","tag-wta"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}