The last volume has passed 5000 posts, time to start a new one.
The key part is that she was heading into the summer hardcourt season and the year before she won Rogers Cup, New Haven, Tokyo, Beijing, and YEC final.I don't think that the drop in Caro's game was due to any pressure of being #1 without a slam either. I do think Caro and Piotr just lost direction what to do. They sure were sending out contradictory and confusing signals what exactly they were doing after IW in 2011. And one of my biggest gripes in 2012 was how it was all supposed to be about focussing for the slams. And poor perfomances at the regular tournaments were dismissed as "Don't worry. This is not the priority - it's the slams we are preparing for". I think they took their eye off the ball as to some worrying things that were happening - poor performances at regular tournaments, the increase in UEs....
The increase in UEs was too easily dismissed as teething problems when going for her shots more. But I think UEs crept into her whole game and many of them weren't because she was going for her shots at all. Just bread and butter errors where she simply broke down before her opponent and she hardly ever used to do that, She was just leaking too many and it looks to me as if not enough attention was given to that and they were dismised as "Don't worry - it's the price for trying to be more aggressive". The trouble is - when they go up - there was no advantage she had in any area of her game against other players in a whole host of her matches.
You mean with TJ? I think she has great defensive skills, and she has to use them. But when she is in a crosscourt backhand rally, and gets a short ball with her opponent in that corner, the down the line backhand is her best shot to win a point. But she has to wait for the right moments, because you dont want to give the point away, trying to end the points too quickly.Despite Caro's overall return to a more defensive style of play, I hope she still plays on grass like she did with Sanchez (allbeit without a first round loss at Wimbledon). She played arguably her best match on grass ever last year and her overall level of play on grass was pretty good.
Wish all young players moved for the ball like @CaroWozniacki
Yeah, that was Rogers Cup, New Haven, USO, Tokyo, Beijing 2010. 4 titles & a semi 25-1.She even had a 25-1 streak in 2010! She won all matches from Montreal to 1RR at YEC except the SF loss at USO against Zvonareva.
That seems such a long time ago. An 8-match winning streak would be pretty awesome these days. I'm sure she'll be back, but I don't know when.