Ashleigh Barty didn’t have the power to bring down the sixth seed at the Western and Southern Open Thursday. The young Aussie was thrown for troubling times on Center Court as Caroline Wozniacki took the match in straight sets winning 6-4, 6-2 at the Linder Family Tennis Center.
The youthful Australian delivered a hard-earned knockout to Venus Williams Wednesday going the distance with the ninth seed. After overcoming the 2-6 loss in the second, the 21-year-old held her ground in the third delivering a hold of Williams to just two games. Wozniacki had Vesnina figured out in her straight sets match which started her tournament run at Cincinnati. With the need for full time strength and consistency, the former number one had to watch herself against the quick paced youngster.
The Aussie began the match with a service hold that set the pace for the two. She kept ahead of Wozniacki after three setting the bar high for her opponent to overcome. She dropped serve in the fourth giving Barty her first two game lead. In a need for a much stronger response, Wozniacki struck back, slowly covering the spread to even with Barty who served for a chance at the lead.
She faced very difficult moments with the wind and hard returns from the sixth seed who broke ahead. Wozniacki used the heavy work in the seventh and chained a service hold in the eighth pressuring Barty to break once more. It was the order of the day as Barty struggled giving the former number one two set point chances. Both were trounced by the 21-year-old who forced deuce as she tried to gain a footing. It proved a success as she watched a return from Wozniacki fall far from the baseline to stay close in the set.
The Dane didn’t let that bother her going into the tenth with service for the set as she locked down the victory holding off the fight from Barty ending 40 minutes of play. Aside from playing even when scoring points on one another, the first serve of Wozniacki was much higher than her opponent that led to the ability of control her path to victory.
She kept ahead of Barty in the second set, wanting to keep control of herself and the score. Wozniacki kept a game between herself and Barty making the day difficult for the 21-year-old, by the fifth game, it was clear that the world number six was on a serious offensive that couldn’t be broken. She made it 4-2 on the Australian and added another hold of serve to put Barty under pressure to stay alive in the match.
A very comfortable Wozniacki smashed back the serves of Barty who couldn’t gain a point in her final game that resulted in three match points. A final winner for the Dane brought the ultimate goal for her that brought the match over in one hour and seven minutes with an easy finish on court. Her all around service finished on average with 74 percent of points won and 64 from the second serve. She’ll hope to have similar results or better when she takes on world number one Karolina Pliskova in Friday’s quarterfinal match.
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