Caroline Wozniacki got her biggest win of the season so far by overcoming the 25th seed Donna Vekic at the Indian Wells Open.
Wozniacki returned to tennis at last year's US Open after a significant period of time way. She impressively progressed to the fourth-round of the Grand Slam, only losing narrowly to the eventual champion Coco Gauff.
The Dane prepared for the event in Indian Wells by playing in the Eisenhower Cup, which is played before the tournament starts in aid of charity. The cup was won by Ben Shelton and Emma Navarro.
Her opening match at the Masters 1000 event was hampered by the weather. However, Wozniacki overcame the rain delays to come through in straights against Zhu Lin.
Vekic represented an even bigger challenge for Wozniacki to contend with. However, the 2018 Australian Open champion rolled back the years to produce a terrific performance in California.
There are often many breaks of serve in Wozniacki's matches and it seemed like this may be the case again. Vekic and Wozniacki exchanged breaks to start the match after some impressive returning from both players.
However, the match followed a very different pattern after that. There were no more breaks in the opening set, although Wozniacki did have to save two break points at one stage.
A tiebreak decided the set, and Vekic got herself into a 4-2 lead. But the Croat then made some surprising unforced errors to lose four points in a row, and eventually lose the tiebreak 7-5, and the set 7-6.
Vekic had a chance to respond in the fourth game of the second set. She was up 15-40 on Wozniacki's serve, but the Dane again stayed the calmer player under pressure to see off that danger.
The Croat's game then fell apart somewhat after what had been a match of very good quality. Solid groundstrokes were enough for Wozniacki to find the first break since the second game of the match to lead 4-3.
The 33-year-old made no mistake from there. Wozniacki broke Vekic's serve again at 5-3, despite the 25th seed leading 30-0 in the game. That sealed a 7-6 6-3 triumph for Wozniacki and showed her comeback to the sport has great potential.
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