WHAT HAPPENED: In a third-round match that featured plenty of baseline cross-court action, the two-time US Open runner-up Caroline Wozniacki came from behind to soundly defeat American Jennifer Brady, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday.
Wozniacki, 33, was a wild card competing in her 14th US Open, 11 months after having her second child. Brady, 28, was a 2014 NCAA team titlist at UCLA, competing in her fifth US Open. Both were making comebacks.
The first set was fairly even, with remarkable symmetry. In the first two games, each player won all four points on serve. In the next two games, they traded breaks. Brady subsequently pulled ahead, 3-2, on her own serve. In the next two games, they each saved two break points to hold. In the next two games, they both held easily again. Then, trailing 5-4, Wozniacki unraveled on her own serve. She lost all four points (hitting three into the net and one long) to cede the first set, 6-4.
In the second set, Wozniacki broke Brady three times, including the closing game.
In the third set, Wozniacki sped to a 5-0 lead in her first US Open since 2019. At 5-1, she successfully served for the match.
In just her third tournament back after a three-year retirement, Wozniacki said, “As a competitor, you always want to win. You go out there and believe in yourself [but] I didn’t think I’d be here again. What an honor this is.”
When she was down a set, trailing 0-2, Wozniacki said that “normally the backhand down the line is my money shot. I can normally hit it in my sleep,” but it wasn’t quite working. “As I found my rhythm, I thought I played really, really well in the second half.”
WHAT IT MEANS: Tonight, Wozniacki will find out whether her fourth-round opponent will be the No. 6 seed, Coco Gauff of the US, or the escape artist Elise Mertens, who saved five match points in the first two rounds. Wozniacki has never faced Gauff. She is 2-0 against Mertens (most recently defeating the Belgian in the 2018 Australian Open semifinals).
“I know both players so well,” Wozniacki said in her on-court interview after the match. “Coco–what an amazing couple of months she had. And Elise Mertens has been in the semifinals of Slam. I know both of their games very well.”
But the plan on Friday night wasn’t necessarily to strategize. Wozniacki said she planned to see her two children before their bedtime and have a nice dinner.
MATCH POINT: Both Wozniacki and Brady demonstrated that perhaps absence really does make the tennis heart grow fonder. After both players missed last year’s US Open–Brady due to foot and knee injuries, and Wozniacki in retirement–Wozniacki is trying to win her first title here after twice being the runner-up (in 2009 and 2014). Brady had been hoping to improve her best finish, too; in 2020, she lost to the eventual champion, Naomi Osaka, in the semifinals. This year, Osaka, a new mom, is missing from the draw. Maybe all three hearts will pull the trio back to Flushing Meadows in 2024.
