I can't explain why, but I just had a sense that the Stosur defeat was the start of a day of potential upsets; ok maybe more wishful thinking on my part!
The match started confidently enough from both of them with holds. Dani was mixing up her play a lot and was using drop shots to leave Wozniacki stuck in the court. It was pretty clear from her pattern of play that she had a game plan today, and was doing her best to stick to it. Dani was holding comfortably and moving Wozniacki all around the court, often leaving her struggling to get back into position.
Caro was making more of an effort to get to some of Dani's drop shots and shot of the day had to be a passing backhand volley after Caro flipped up a drop shot she managed to get to.
There was no faulting Dani's range today - she was really painting the lines and testing Wozniacki's movement to the limit today.
First blood went to Hantuchova with a break to lead 3-1. Caro resorted to some moonballing, which was punished with more drop shots and a consolidated break
Hantuchova was just imperious today, and it seemed as though Wozniacki was just a step-slow and couldn't get moving. There was no real answer from her and at 5-1 Hantuchova was serving for the first set.
Maybe there was the first sign of nerves as Dani dumped an easy smash into the base of the net and the wind was visibly picking up the ball at times.
Wozniacki was tending to leave the court wide open, and any time she would venture to the net, Dani was just exploiting that. It took Hantchova just 27 minutes to seal the first set 6-1. Just over twice the time it took Schiavone to hold her first service game!!
A dreadful cross court miss from Wozniacki and some signs of frustration from her at the start of the second; her range seemed to be totally off coming into the start of this set.
Hantuchova broke at the start of the second, and nothing seemed to be working consistently for the world number one, coupled with the aggressive play coming at her from the other side of the net from Hantuchova.
Wozniacki seemed to be settling down a little in the third game but even then, I spoke to soon and another wild swing and spectacularly miss came our way.
The only way she was going to be able to get back into this game was if Dani had a trademark.... lapse of concentration! I hesitate to use the word meltdown, as I think Hantuchova is a very talented player, and has been working pretty hard on both singles and doubles; she undoubtedly deserves more than she has achieved, but tends to perhaps lose focus in the crunch moments. Certainly with Caro seemingly floundering around with her feet stuck in the clay, the match was there for the taking.
A break from Hantuchova to go up 3-0 and a hold for 4-0. Wozniacki was looking very lost out there. Often, Papa Piotr is out on the tour events to give her a pep talk (that she largely ignores, from what I've seen), but one has to ask - is this the downside to the effect of online coaching?
When Hantuchova starts mixing up her game, from baseline to net, and corner to corner, Wozniacki is almost always left stranded in the court. It was like any court-smarts had just deserted her today.
Wozniacki finally got a game up on the board as Dani sent a forehand away (and around this time I got the feeling that the people sat next to me were Danish, as they went very quiet and weren't that impressed with my enthusiastic applause for Dani's persistence!)
Caro started to show a little more fight, and tried to play Dani at her own game, throwing in a couple of dropshots and ripping a few cross-court winners herself.
She managed to get herself to 3-4 and it looked like this might be the turnaround she was waiting for.
Hantuchova seemed to wake up a bit at this point to ease ahead 5-3.
She then picked up the aggression on the Wozniacki service game, but promptly skied a ball mid-rally for no apparent reason whatsoever... I mean she wasn't even aiming at a pigeon, or anything!
Wozniacki was unlucky to give away the match at the end because she actually had Dani out of position, but her UE gave Dani a major result and the 2nd upset of the day.
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