Caroline Wozniacki had a lot of fight in her quarterfinal match at the Pan Pacific Open Friday night. The former number one saw her journey to the semis difficult against Dominika Cibulkova but an injury to the Slovakian brought an end to her tournament at the Ariake Colosseum. The match concluded in a 3-6, 7-6(5), 3-1 win for the Dane to continue on as defending champion.
This was the 14th match between the two European stars with Wozniacki leading the way by more than half. They last met in 2016 which ended a four-year gap and plan to give each other tough times on court. Wozniacki knew what that was like against Shelby Rogers Wednesday night as she went the distance before defeating the American with a boost of strength in the final set. The Slovakian hasn’t seen heavy resistance in her two previous matches where she eliminated Carla Suarez-Navarro and Katerina Siniakova. With someone new on the horizon for the number three seed, the Dane would hope to find her path to a seventh final one that would pay dividends.
She and Cibulkova started with breaking one another on serve before the sudden change of control landed in the hands of the Slovakian. It was there that she took off with a force that allowed her to break Wozniacki twice for a massive 4-1 lead in the set. Cibulkova’s attempt for a third break of the Dane didn’t work out as the third seed held after a talk with her coach/father to regroup quickly while the chances were open.
The margin was cut in half but the adversity remained heavily in favor of the 28 year old. In the seventh game, Cibulkova put the lock down on Wozniacki with a well-placed ace that gave her first dibs at winning the set outright. Her chance came in the ninth just after Wozniacki’s hold that saw her thrashing shots with terrific placement to beat the Dane. A few more winners on the backhand gave her the secure victory of the set after 43 minutes. The Slovakian had the right amount of energy to have succeeded despite having a serve percentage below 70 percent. She landed more than twice the winners than Wozniacki which played a major role in her quest to be ahead in the match.
The second set began the same way but Wozniacki’s push to remain competitive showed in her breaking of Cibulkova through the first four games. She didn’t allow the Slovakian to run away with anything. Through the next several games, both players broke one another in a journey to make the set happen for each of them. At times, it was a struggle for the number three seed to handle Cibulkova but the hard hits of the Slovakian remained high leveled to trouble the Danish star.
They remained deadlocked beyond the five all score leading them to fight to the distance with everything on the line. Cibulkova reached 6-5 in the set with service in her hands to finish the match. Wozniacki wasn’t going down easily as she fought for every point possible to stay alive. They went six breaks with one another before the 27-year-old finally brought an end to the 12-minute game that set up a pivotal tiebreaker. She made it hers to design taking a run to the finish as the world number six. Maintaining the lead was the order of her move to force a deciding set putting an end to the one hour and nine-minute battle.
The endurance took a toll on both of them but it seemed to hit Cibulkova harder. She won her opening service game in the third set but going beyond that was tough. By the end of the fourth game and down 3-1, the Slovakian called it a done deal and gave Wozniacki the pass into the semifinals completing 2 hours and 27 minutes.
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