Has a nice, melodious sound to it, doesn’t it, and it will happen if Sweet Caroline blows through seven matches and wins the U.S. Open this fortnight, beginning Tuesday with a gimme first-rounder against Chelsey Gullikson, whose two ranking points are so low she doesn’t even register among the first 1,073 women on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.
A title at this final Grand Slam of the season puts Wozniacki at 7,010 points while current No. 1 Serena Williams, who is injured, not playing and unable to defend her 900 points from last year’s Open, slips to 6,995.
If it happens, it will happen on Sept. 11, when Wozniacki is exactly 20 years and two months old — not even close to youngest No. 1 ever Martina Hingis, but young enough to send some rippling vibrations through women’s tennis.
And don’t think any of this is weighing heavily on Wozniacki’s blonde head. “Pressure is when you’re put in a spot and you don’t really feel like you belong there. When you really believe you belong there, you can do the things you have to do. There’s no pressure. You just go out there and play,” she explained.
She’s always been brimming over with confidence, though she’s not always been Sweet Caroline.
Four years ago, at the U.S. Open juniors, Wozniacki was playing a first-round match against Alexandra Panova and got a bit miffed at a lines caller.
It wasn’t quite as rough and tumble as Serena Williams’ outburst at the Open a year ago, but she quite audibly used two words that earned her an immediate default. One began with an F, the other with an A.
That sort of language would come as a major surprise to anyone who has only recently become attracted to either Wozniacki’s good looks and great tennis. Publicly, she is polite, respectful and, to fans, very accommodating.
Physically, she’s big enough at 5-foot-10 and about 130 pounds to wallop with the other big hitters in the game, but her tactics more resemble Andy Murray than Maria Sharapova or one of the Williams sisters. She picks her spots to play risky tennis. She’s not on anyone’s fastest-serve list, and her second serve could use a lot more oomph. But she hits the first with great accuracy, and you don’t give her some marshmallow second serve to return. That’s one of her greatest weapons.
Her parents were born in Poland and, when father Piotr was signed by Danish club Odense, he moved the family to Denmark, where Wozniacki was born.
How good has she been this year, and how good can she be at this Open? Certainly, her chances of winning a first Slam improve with Serena Williams out of the mix, but it’s not just Serena who has given her trouble.
She’s 0-2 lifetime vs. Serena, 0-4 vs. Venus Williams, 0-4 vs. Jelena Jankovic and 0-1 vs. Clijsters.
Wozniacki has had a splendid year with a 44-14 record and four titles — Ponte Vedra Beach, Copenhagen, Montreal and New Haven, which she won by beating Nadia Petrova 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on Saturday. She rides into New York with an eight-match winning streak and with the emotional strength that comes with having reached the final of this major a year ago.
But her Slam performances in 2010 has not been nearly as good — out in the fourth round at Australia, the quarters at the French Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon.
For some, undoubtedly, she will be a sort of bogus No. 1 seed this year, winning the honor by default.
I doubt, however, if any of that nonsense will bother Wozniacki because at the other end of the rainbow is not just the $1.7 million first prize and the $1 million bonus for winning the leadup U.S. Open Series, but the No. 1 ranking as well.
Wozniacki will happily tell you there just ain’t no pressure, though. Because she belongs.