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Aleksandra Wozniak joins Eugenie Bouchard in the Indian Wells fourth round
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Week by week, match by match – even point by point, Montreal’s Aleksandra Wozniak is slowly getting back to the player she used to be.
The latest step in that journey back from a shoulder injury that has kept her out most of the last year and a half was a 6-1, 6-7, 6-0 victory over top-20 player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia at the BNP Paribas Open Monday.
It’s the second seeded player the 26-year-old has knocked out of the tournament, after her third-set tiebreak upset of No. 15 seed Sabine Lisicki in the second round.
Here's what it looked like:
“I’m really happy. Nathalie (coach Nathalie Tauziat) tells me I’m progressing, finding my game step by step, that offensive way that I used to play,” said Wozniak, who will meet Australian Open champion Li Na in the fourth round, the top seed in the event because of the absence of Serena Williams.
“Slowly and slowly, every week, every match I’ve had the past couple of tournaments, they give me confidence, and help me apply that (aggressive) game again, like before.”
Wozniak was all over Pavlyuchenkova, as talented as anyone out there but prone to mixing poor matches with the great ones, in the first set.
In the second, she hung back a bit behind the baseline, allowing the Russian back into the match. But even down 2-5, Wozniak found a way to get herself back in – she even served for it at 6-5 before dropping the second set tiebreaker.
Enter Tauziat for a coaching consult.
“It was strong and positive. Encouragement, a little recap, it was good to boost me for the third set,” Wozniak said.
Tauziat told Eh! Game that she told her charge to stop hanging back on the baseline, to step right up again as she had in the first set.
“The player who stepped in usually won the point,” Tauziat said.
As well, she suggested a few adjustments on the serve, particularly the toss.
Both players had trouble with their serves; the ball flies quickly in the desert air here.
“She hits a hard all, I think when I stepped up, I put her in more difficult positions in the corners. Also I had to return well, but for some reason when I put pressure on her, she made double-faults,” Wozniak said. “Was important in the third set to step up and take that advantage from the very beginning, and after that I think she lost it. You could see she was frustrated.”
Pavlyuchenkova had her coach/father Sergey on hand (Darren Cahill, the coaching consultant for adidas, her clothing sponsor, was also courtside).
Her father was her “official” coach, the one miked up and allowed to come on court for a coaching consult per the WTA Tour rules.
He was quite a sight, his head wrapped in a white towel, his baseball cap on top of that.
But Pavlyuchenkova never called upon him. “Maybe she should have,” Cahill told Eh Game. “Strange match.”
Pavlyuchenkova double-faulted the last three points of the match away.
Next up is Li, and Wozniak said it would be a “privilege” to play the Australian Open champion.
She is almost starting her career over from ground zero, but with a twist.
Wozniak may not quite have found her old game, but she does have plenty of institutional memory in terms of knowing how to handle matches against top opponents on big courts.
It’s a matchup between players who prefer their backhands to their forehands, and hit them wondrously cross-court.
On Tuesday, fellow Montrealer Genie Bouchard, the No. 18 seed, will try to get to the quarterfinals as she takes on another top up-and-comer on the women’s tour, No. 6 seed Simona Halep of Romania.
