Caroline Wozniacki is in the position—enviable or not, depending on your point of view—of being both the top seed and a dark horse pick for the Wimbledon title. But as other women falter and fall, Wozniacki played another solid match to defeat Jarmila Gajdosova, 6-3, 6-2, and move on to the fourth round.
Gajdosova reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year before falling to Venus Williams, and she started the match confidently, with two easy service holds. Both women have stronger backhands than forehands, but the most noticeable difference between them was Wozniacki’s superior movement. Gajdosova had opportunities to make inroads early in the first set, but Wozniacki’s success in not just reaching almost every ball, but doing so in time to be able to return it with both depth and control, kept her ahead. At 3-3, Gajdosova got to 40-30 on Wozniacki’s serve and played a lovely cross-court backhand, only for Wozniacki to return the ball at her feet as she came into net. It was an opportunity snatched out from under her, and some errant backhands in the next game allowed the world No. 1 to break and then serve out the set, 6-3.
A set down, Gajdosova abandoned the tentativeness of the first set and began going for her shots. She maneuvered frantically to hit backhands and consistently opened up the court with cross-court angles, all in order to set up down-the-line shots, a textbook closing strategy. She also started coming to net, saving two break points with volley winners, but once again, Wozniacki’s defense took her feet out from under her to earn the early break. From then on, it was a case of too little, too late from Gajdosova, as Wozniacki’s impenetrable steadiness saw her cruise to the victory.
So Wozniacki got the chance to show off her wares, including a fantastic improvised lob on the run, in front of some of Great Britain’s sporting best on People’s Saturday. She moves on to face Dominika Cibulkova in the next round. Cibulkova is a better mover than Gajdosova, and since working with Dinara Safina’s former coach, Zeljko Krajan, has been reinventing herself from an aggressive counterpuncher to an out-and-out attacking player. It worked well for her against Germany’s Julia Goerges today, but the Dane will be a wholly different and much tougher prospect.
—Hannah Wilks