Wozniacki beaten by Cibulkova in St. Petersburg

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—Caroline Wozniacki was knocked out of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy by Dominika Cibulkova 6-4, 7-5 after a heated dispute with the umpire over a mistaken call.

Wozniacki was 5-3 down in the second set when a Cibulkova shot was wrongly called out.

Umpire Emmanuel Joseph overruled the call and awarded the point to Cibulkova instead of replaying it even though Wozniacki had clearly returned the ball in court Thursday.

That prompted a lengthy dispute between the Danish player and the umpire. Despite not getting the point, the controversy seemed to fire up Wozniacki, who saved four match points and broke Cibulkova’s serve before Cibulkova eventually closed out the match in straight sets.

“I was aggressive. Even if I did some mistakes I was really confident. It was the only way I could beat her,” Cibulkova, of Slovakia, said in televised comments. “I’m happy with the way I stayed really tough mentally.”

Cibulkova, the Australian Open losing finalist in 2014, next plays Darya Kasatkina in the quarterfinal after the 18-year-old Russian beat Laura Siegemund of Germany 6-3, 6-4.

Top-seeded Belinda Bencic overcame serving issues earlier in the day to defeat Annika Beck of Germany 7-6 (3), 6-3.

Bencic was broken four times in a chaotic first set in which she recorded six double faults, including one on break point that allowed Beck to serve for the set at 6-5. However, the Swiss recovered to break Beck and dominate both the resulting tiebreak and second set.

“I had some trouble in the start and I think the court was very slow,” the 18-year-old Bencic said in televised comments. “My timing was a little bit off.”

Bencic, who had a first-round bye, next plays a quarterfinal against fifth-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, who won 6-1, 7-5 against Carina Witthoeft of Germany.

Earlier, Hungary’s Timea Babos defeated ninth-seeded Monica Niculescu of Romania 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in her second-round match.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Tennis: Wozniacki crashes out of Aussie Open

Melbourne, Australia — Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki crashed out of the Australian Open at the first hurdle Monday after tossing away a one-set lead against Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva.

The Dane, who remains one of the most marketable players in tennis despite never winning a major in 35 attempts, again failed to break her Grand Slam drought.

She romped through the first set against the 76th-ranked Putintseva but as the Kazakh’s confidence grew, Wozniacki struggled to cope with her opponent’s baseline game and went down 1-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 in 3hrs 12 mins.

“I can’t believe I won the match,” said 21-year-old Putintseva, who was shaking with nerves in her courtside interview and revealed she battled through blisters on her feet and toes.

“I was very nervous in the first set because I am not used to playing on such a big court. But then I got a bit more used to it.”

Her reward is a second round-clash with Chinese wildcard Han Xinyun, and a potential fourth-round encounter with world number one Serena Williams.

It was a disappointing start to the year for Wozniacki, who has struggled to regain the form that saw her end 2010 and 2011 as world number one.

She won in Malaysia last year but other highlights were few and far between.

Capping off her misery, she cut her finger badly with a bread knife and withdrew from the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai, southern China, in November.

source: sports.inquirer.net