Danish 10th seed Caroline Wozniacki had opening duties together with Spain's Lourdes Dominguez Lino on Hisense Arena on Day 2 of Aus Open 2014. Lourdes began her professional tennis career as a 15 year old in 1996 so was not short of experience coming into the match. She lacked in performances at this level and at this event though, in comparison to Wozniacki who had made the semi final here in 2011.
Caro was recently engaged to champion golfer Rory McIlroy and the improvement in her game since that relationship blossomed could be easily seen.
On the front nine, Wozniacki was driving everything into court, her approach shots were landing on or near the lines, and she was sinking all her volleys. She started with a birdie and before long a course record for the Hisense Links was on the cards.
Unfortunately, things were not faring as well for Lourdes who already had hit a couple of balls out of bounds and was regularly coming up short or generally landing in trouble due to poor choice of club. She needed a caddy like Rory. Caro won the first six holes off Lourdes under match play rules and so took the first set 6-0.
Lourdes changed her driver for the back nine and the match evened up for awhile. Drives began to become inconsistent for Caro and better approaches left Lourdes with less to do from short range. The Spanish player won 2 of the first 3 on the back nine. A consult with Rory and a slight swing adjustment enabled Caro to once again take control of the match and she dominated the remaining holes, pressuring Lourdes into poor shot selection just to stay with the Danish former number one ranked female. (Sorry former number one ranked female tennis player)
The match was won 6-0 6-2 with the feature being Wozniacki's ability to use the whole court at most stages of the match, her volleying quite precise and effective and her backhand strong and reliable. I'd suggest keeping the three wood in the bag. It came in handy when down early in the second set.
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