Caroline Wozniacki wowed many with her sensational performance against Petra Kvitova to beat her in two sets at the US Open.
This is a matchup we saw many times on the WTA Tour, as Wozniacki and Kvitova battled fiercely for much of the past 15 years. This was the first time in five years that they faced each other, as Wozniacki won the previous one in 2018.
Kvitova was favoured to win the match simply by being an active player who hadn't come back to the sport recently. Wozniacki did, and while she played fine, it didn't really look good enough to beat players who are ranked in the Top 20 like Kvitova is.
When the Czech veteran broke Wozniacki in the match's first game, it seemed like she was on her way to winning the match. Not quite as Wozniacki battled back immediately to make it 1-1, Kvitova would jump out to a lead again, but Wozniacki fought back again.
As the match went on, Kvitova became increasingly nervous, missing more. That culminated with Wozniacki taking the opening set 7-5. Wozniacki's timely serving was a huge part of winning the set because she hit a great one every time she needed one.
Kvitova was pretty good, hitting 23 winners but also had 19 unforced errors, which was too much. The second set followed a similar pattern, but Wozniacki was much sharper this time. Kvitova struggled to hang on early as the Dane eventually got the break.
She was up 4-2, but Kvitova found a way to pull herself out of that, making it 4-4. At one hour and 50 minutes, Wozniacki got her first match point but didn't convert it. About a minute later, she got another one but again didn't get it done.
We ended up in a tiebreak, which was exciting but also demonstrated how the players played for much of this match. Wozniacki was on every ball, sending it back fairly deep, something Kvitova couldn't deal with efficiently. She created some great angles at times but mostly sailed balls wide.
Wozniacki again had some pretty timely serves and found a 3rd match point some 18 minutes after the first one. This one would do it as she finished off the match 7-5, 7-6(5). A sensational performance from Wozniacki, who admitted before the event that she had no expectations, but with this level, she definitely should.
A solid effort from Kvitova, who had 38 winners but also 39 unforced errors. It doesn't look too bad, but when compared to the line of Wozniacki (22 winners and 13 unforced errors), it's clear why the Danish player won.
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