Wozniacki's Shock Loss Not So Shocking

To the casual observer Wozniacki's crushing defeat to Daniela Hantuchova at Roland Garros yesterday may have been a huge surprise. Wozniacki entered the match as the #1 seed, and #1 ranked player in the world. And while she may still be without her maiden Grand Slam Title, she has shown remarkable consistency in her results over the past year. Meanwhile Hantuchova came in ranked 29th, and had failed to progress past the 4th round of a Grand Slam in the last year, including a 1st round loss Down Under a few months ago at the Aussie Open.In addition Wozniacki led their head-to-head battles 3-0, including a 6-2, 6-2 win in their only meeting on clay.

Danger was lurking for Wozniacki - 2009 Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova was waiting for her in the 4th round, and a showdown with last year's finalist Sam Stosur was lurking if she survived that (Stosur would lose in three sets yesterday also, but that's another story). But on paper this should have been an easy win for the world's #1 player.

So what happened? For starters, Wozniacki ran into a Hantuchova who was playing extremely well. Despite her rough start to the year, Hantuchova was already showing signs of turning her season around once she hit the clay. Coming into the French, she had played Stosur to two tough losses in Stuttgart and Madrid. Then a three-set loss to Schiavone in Rome was followed by a semi-final run at Strasbourg. In short, Daniela had her feet under her on the clay, and was striking the ball well.

Then there is always Wozniacki herself. Her stats for the match show nothing remarkable. 8 winners vs 14 unforced errors. In her straight sets 2nd round win, her tally was 16 winners to 24 unforced errors. Even her first-round drubbing of the aging Kimiko Date only had her hitting 12 winners to 9 unforced errors. Wozniacki plays passive tennis. She lives on her opponent's errors, trusting in her athleticism and good court sense to sustain her in points until those errors arrive. This strategy is all well and good most of the time. But Wozniacki's problem is she has no real Plan B. She is stuck surrendering control of the match to her opponent. In this case, Hantuchova came out hitting harder, deeper, and being more willing to change the direction of the ball to keep control of the point.

And down a set and a break in the second, Wozniacki was still relying - nay hoping - that Hantuchova would just start missing. That was her backup plan. As it always is. And on this day, in this setting, it was not enough.