Thursday, August 26, 2010
Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn.
U.S. Open top-seed Caroline Wozniacki got a little help from the entire Yale football team Wednesday as she cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 win over Dominika Cibulkova at the Pilot Pen tournament.
Wozniacki, who won in Montreal on Monday and is this tournament’s two-time defending champion, has a special relationship with the team. She took time last year to visit a Yale practice and talked to the players about mental toughness. They responded this year by appearing en masse, in their jerseys at her opening match.
“They are really nice guys, and that they all came and supported me today was just fun,” she said. “We should make this a tradition.”
Wozniacki got off to a rough start, and was down 4-3 in the first set. In between games, she got some treatment for a stiff back and responded by giving up just two points the rest of the set.
“I was telling myself, ‘I want to play, move your feet, come on let’s go,”’ Wozniacki said. “We don’t want to play three sets of course, I want to win in two.”
It didn’t hurt, she said, to have about 80 guys yelling for her.
“We’ve kind of adopted her as our professional women’s tennis player, and hopefully we’re her American college football team,” Yale coach Tom Williams said.
Wozniacki plays Flavia Pennetta in the quarterfinals. Pennetta advanced with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Olga Govortsova. If Wozniacki wins today, she will clinch the U.S. Open Series championship.
Elena Dementieva moved into the quarterfinals with a 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 6-4 win over Kateryna Bondarenko. Dementieva, who is ranked No. 13 in the world, has dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since 2008.