I Wonder Now Long it will take before Caro ready too Break outta her shell and wants be Coached by a real Coach beside her dad, someone who willing to help her improve her game hopefully that happen soon
I think this is a key year. If Caroline has another year like 2012, it becomes a save-your-career situation.
Right now it looks like the way she prepares for matches doesnt help her win them. And that should be the whole point of the preparation: to win titles. To be a factor at majors.
Its not just working hard, its working smart. Trying to get the mental toughness back, that seems to be the biggest problem
Tough draw for Caro but there aren't many draws that would be considered easy for her these days. :shrug: Based on the draw she should make it to the quarters but just winning in the 1st round would be pretty good at this point.
Whatever we think about the coaching situation and Piotr - it could be a lot worse. I used to be a fan of JJ and Kim. JJ got to #1 at the end of 2008. I think it was immediately after the AO 2009 that she fired Sanchez as her coach. She tried a coach for a fortnight and was confused so let him go. So she went for a little while without a coach at all. In fact in her career - JJ has had Sanchez three separate time periods - firing him twice but then coming back to him.
Whatever players without a coach may say - and I've heard JJ, Ana Ivanovic, Kim in 2006, heard them all say when they didn't have a coach how they didn't really need one and knew what they needed to work on and could do that with a hitting partner. But the times when they had no coach at all - their game just got worse.
At least with Piotr Caro has got a coach and has never been without a coach at all.
Let me say that,as a Latino,I'm all in favor of keeping things within the family,but sometimes love can creep into dependency...to an unhealthy extent.I can't honestly say whether Caroline has crossed that line or not,yet we can't deny the possibility that something could happen which would make Piotr unavailable as a coach.God forbid...but it's occurred several times within my OWN family...that Piotr got cancer and was too ill to tour with Caro......Would she simply retire at that point??(I wouldn't fault her if she did,btw)If,indeed,Caroline is unable to succeed with any other coach,then that's not exactly the best endorsement for her level of mental toughness.Again,Piotr certainly hasn't been a BAD coach,per se;however,he's raised some reasonable doubts with some of his approaches
Despite the recent H2H struggles,it's certainly not a given that Caro would've lost to the German if Sunshine gave an effort like she did in the 1st Round...let's see how well she follows up
So, Sveta it is, that's both good and bad. Good, because Caro has good chances of winning that match-up and getting some matches under her belt before AO. Bad, because she needs to break that losing streak against Julia at some point (like she did against Li Na in Tokyo) and doing it right before AO would've been a far better morale booster than another win over Sveta (presumably).
NB: But if Caro beats Sveta, she'll likely face another 3-times losing streak in QF; Kerber.
I think Sveta is a better match-up than Julia. Caro somehow doesn't know how to handle Julia. There's be a real danger that Goerges would defeat her even though she's not at her best atm. The real test will come in QF. Kerber is a huge challenge for Caro and she'll need to play at her best to stand a chance.
Caro's shots are too friendly for Goerges as they sit up and are too much in the middle of the court. Caro's bffs Aga and Vika do a lot better against Goerges : Aga hits flatter shots that aren't as much in Goerges' strike zone and Vika really angles the ball out of the middle of the court. Also, both aren't useless/clueless against Goerges' moonballing tactic.
Either way, its important for Caroline to have a good run these next 3 weeks.
Now she's coming off a good win. She needs to put a few of these together.
Consistency has become one of her biggest problems.
Early this year Stosur & Kvitova are struggling. The mental part of this game is huge. Somehow, Caroline dropped off in the area of mental toughness. The only way she is going to get anywhere near the top again is to fight hard for every set, especially on her serve, and especially at hardcourt Premiers, mandatories & even moreso, at the AO & USO
Apia Intl Sydney @SydneyTennis
UPDATE: #Wozniacki- #Kuznetsova have been moved to 3rd on Centre Court tomorrow. Zheng-Keys to Ct.6, #Kerber to Grandstand #SydneyTennis
Though it's not an empirical fact,it's hard to refute the argument that Rory is somewhat of a deterrent to Caro's career.Still,I saw the photo gallery of them this morning and they looked like a couple of cute dorks in love;he seems to really adore Caroline.Ideally,she would learn to balance relationship and tennis well,but I'm glad that she's stable AS A PERSON even when her tennis is less than perfect--and that she can find happiness from other sources.Caroline is clearly not one of the WTA's infamous trophy slut gfs...whom we won't bother naming here
Kuala Lumpur that's odd! What was all the Katowice talk about then? :lol:
Big month gap between Charleston and Madrid.
No New Haven, that's a shocker :lol:
Caro is now scheduled to play 6 tournaments in a row. Plus she's playing an exhibition before Indian Wells and Miami. Normally I'd prefer for her not to play more then two or three tournaments so she can get some rest and do some training. This is just ridiculous.
Please be smart in your scheduling for a change, Caro. Sigh.
Caro had 20 winners 35 unforced errors for the match.
Caro is kind of in between: 20 winners isn't that many winners over 3 sets if you're trying to be more aggressive, 35 unforced errors with an almost two unforced errors to one winner ratio is far too many if you're trying to play a defensive/consistent game.