I have to say, last night’s win for Vera is so satisfying for me for the pure fact that she was universally written off by so many “experts” beforehand. In the pre-match build-up Greg Rusedski and Anabel Croft were sitting in the studio and speaking about the upcoming match. Greg went first and predicted Wozniacki to win easily, which is of course fair enough. Anabel then spoke and while she too picked Wozniacki to win, she also made sure to stress the fact that Vera too is a great player, the far superior ballstriker and that she had a chance if she plays well. Greg then completely cut her off, and then in so many words, said that Vera had no chance and that Caroline was already in the final. I shook my head. Judging from the live tweets during the match, a lot of US commentators seemed to be thinking in a similar manner and were just waiting for Vera to break down and hand over the match.

It didn’t happen. Vera won, and in straights at that.

When she came out in the first game I was completely petrified. Every ball was up the middle or to Wozniacki’s backhand, and it looked like another Toronto was on the cards. But from the second game onwards, she began to be far more aggressive and looked to move Wozniacki around; one of her many talents. The match actually wasn’t a bad one by any means. There were some great rallies for the crowd to sink their teeth into and as both girls are such great athletes, there were some astonishing gets and electrifying points. However, Vera usually came out on top - mixing it up between finishing points with a big groundstroke, a volley or a dropshot. She handled the conditions ridiculously well and even used them to her advantage (as she did throughout Indian Wells 2009), and she also served extremely well. I think this also silences the idea that the only way to beat Wozniacki is to play total attacking tennis. Yes, that works but it’s also about being smart, using the whole court and playing with variety.

Above all, this match really shows how far Vera has come mentally in the last few months. There were quite a few incidents in this match that really would have unsettled her earlier on in her career, or even this year. At the beginning of the second set, Vera had double break point. She was on top of the point when Karolina just stopped, walked all the way to behind the linesperson’s chair and picked up a hot dog wrapper to throw it away. Of course in tennis you are allowed to stop a point if there is a distraction, but it just seemed pretty weird considering it wasn’t even anywhere close to the court. In typical Wozniacki fashion, Karolina recovered to win the game. It seemed like a statement from Wozniacki and it could have been a huge momentum shift.

But, again, it didn’t happen.

There was also the case of the rackets. There is apparently a design flaw with her racket and she broke a total of four strings throughout the match, and at one point she ran out of rackets and the ballboys had to run on court handing her rackets. They had clearly been finished only moments before as first one didn’t even have the stencil on it, and the second one was missing a vibration dampner. But she refused to let it faze her, and eventually closed out the match on her first match point. Bravo.

As for Karolina, I don’t think this is anything for her to lose sleep over (though i’m sure Piotr won’t stop shouting at her, day and night, for the next month). She lost to a player who simply played better than her, and she aknowledged it in her presser afterwards. She was probably even worse against Cibulkova in the last round as well, and though Vera would’ve likely won in normal conditions based on this performance, the wind really showed up Wozniacki’s flaws. She doesn’t have the hands, the feel, the shot selection or imagination (of someone like Zvonareva) to control the ball in windy conditions, her forehand is a technically very poor shot plus her serving can be great on one day and terrible on another. Someone also brought up the fact that in her quarterfinal and semifinal matches last year she played Oudin and Wickmayer to reach the final. Today was a match she had to step up to and maybe this is a bigger indication of how Wozniacki copes with big occasions.

Though I highly doubt she was fazed by it, she also had the pressure of being the “title favourite” since her Sharapova win by those experts. I don’t know how they figured out that a slamless 20 year old with a passive game was a favourite over the two multiple champions and two-time winners of this event playing in the other semifinal. But there ya go.