Here’s a good game plan. The next time you’re down four match points, in a contest that has seesawed back and forth over three sets, simply swat four bold winners to wipe them away.
That unlikely scenario is exactly what happened late Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium, as the clock turned to midnight. Petra Cetkovska, a Czech veteran ranked No. 149 and with her back against the proverbial wall, didn’t waver. She stepped inside the baseline against fourth-ranked Caroline Wozniacki and scorched four forehand winners to the corners, leaving Wozniacki befuddled and soon on her way to the showers rather than the third round.
Who does that?
“I said, 'It’s now or never,' so I just went for it,” Cetkovska, her voice quivering, told Pam Shriver on-court after her stirring victory.
It was the second time that Cetkovska had stunned Wozniacki in a Slam. The first was in the second round at Wimbledon in 2013.
“Sometimes you just see the ball, and you just hit it. You just see the hole that you think is the right decision. Obviously, they were all right this time,” Cetkovska said at her press conference that finally got underway at 1:19 a.m. on Friday. “On those match points, I just was thinking that I have to be more aggressive. It has to be me who has to take the game; otherwise it's over.”
That one hour earlier Cetkovska seemed to be shrinking from the occasion, on the edge of a nervous defeat after squandering a one-set and 4-1 lead in the second, made the final-set heroics all the more improbable.
Well, that and the fact that the 30-year-old Cetkovska was playing in only her third pro match of the year. Cetkovska had been sidelined seven months by a serious left-hip injury that required surgery last September.
The 5-foot-8 Cetkovska had been cruising against the Danish star, knocking off winners as though she – not Wozniacki – was the much higher seed and 2014 US Open finalist. But just two games from the finish line, the moment got the best of her, and the Czech began nervously spraying balls. Instead of slowing down and breathing deeply, she began to play at warp speed, as though to ward off demons between points.
Wozniacki caught her and snatched the second set. The determined former world No. 1 appeared certain to take advantage of her greater experience in pressure situations and emerge with the win. Instead, the encounter turned into a dramatic, tension-filled battle of wills in the third set.
“It was a very tough fight. I was playing very well. When I was up in the second set, I started to be tight a little bit, and I let Caroline play more,” said Cetkovska. “Then was just a fight, a mental fight, probably for both of us in the third set.”
Cetkovska steadied herself, unafraid to continue her style of high-risk tennis. She served to take the match to a third-set tiebreak.
“I just kept believing that if I was leading 6-4 and 4-1 that it was not just luck,” said Cetkovska. “It had to be me who was taking little bit more risk – sometimes a lot.”
The Czech double faulted for the first time in the set to give Wozniacki two more match points. (Cetkovska had already saved one.) At 15-40, the unsung challenger cracked a forehand to Wozniacki’s backhand corner, painting the line. Second match point gone. At 30-40, Cetkovska stepped inside the baseline and smacked another inside-out forehand winner. Third match point, wiped away. After sailing a backhand way long to set up match point No. 4 for Wozniacki, Cetkovska crushed a forehand deep to the corner and quickly followed it in, punishing a swinging forehand volley.
Four match points, all erased.
Fans leaped to their feet, anticipating an epic tiebreak, a fitting finale. Instead, Cetkovska – in contast to the tenor of the previous three hours – calmly and completely ran away with it.
For Cetkovska, a talented ball striker who reached No. 31 in the world in 2011 but has spent much of her career beset by injury and on the fringes of the pro tour, it was a sweet victory. She had only earned a place in the US Open draw with a protected ranking due to her prolonged absence, and her bold win over Wozniacki came almost exactly a year after the surgery that might have marked the end of her career.
“This injury that I've overcome, it was really difficult. Every day I was asking myself if I will be able to play tennis again, to play on such a big stadium, to play such a big match and win it,” said Cetkovska.
As she celebrated on court, in her player’s box, the eyes of her coach, Stéphane Charret, filled with tears.
“I just wanted to give the best out of myself tonight, and I did,” said his equally emotional pupil.
