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Shoulder woes help knock out Aleksandra Wozniak in the U.S. Open’s first round

stephanie myles

NEW YORK – Aleksandra Wozniak was one of the first players to start their U.S. Open campaign Monday morning.

And she was one of the first ones eliminated after a 6-2, 6-1 loss to No. 31 seed Kurumi Nara of Japan that did not get over the one-hour mark.

The forehand was the biggest culprit, as it often has been through the summer. The biggest reason for that, Wozniak said, is that the shoulder that cost her nearly a year and a half is acting up again.

"Sometimes it’s okay, but when sometimes I feel like my shoulder is tired, the arm feels heavier, so the forehand is less consistent," Wozniak said. "We’re almost at the end of the season, so the shoulder is a little more tired. For about the last three weeks, it's not at the level it was.

"You worry. It’s something that was a long rehab and all that. They say it’s fatigue; we’ll see in the off-season what we’ll do with it," she added.

The 26-year-old will return to Montreal to have it evaluated. But it sounds as though the Coupe Banque Nationale in Quebec City, which begins in two weeks, is iffy.

Here's what Wozniak's day looked like, from her morning warmup through the 59-minute match.

Wozniak hasn't played much tennis since Wimbledon, so the fatigue in the shoulder certainly isn't from an overabundance of tennis the last two months. Wozniak lost in the second round of qualifying in Stanford the last week of July, had a week before a 6-2, 6-0 loss to Sloane Stephens at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, and nearly two weeks more before she lost in the second round of qualifying in New Haven, Conn. last week.

"I was just making too many unforced errors, and she played pretty solid today," Wozniak said of Nara, a seeded player who is about as far from a household name as you can get. "I’m not happy about it. I wasn’t up to it. She changed speeds well, and I didn’t adjust throughout the whole match," Wozniak added. "Nothing worked. Today was a tough day at the office for me. It’s disappointing."

The worst stat? Wozniak didn't win a single point on her second serve; she went 0-for-17.

Wozniak had her boyfriend, former Montreal Canadiens first-round pick and current Anaheim Duck forward Louis Leblanc, with her to cheer her on. He was fully decked out in his U.S. Open hat, and his U.S. Open T-shirt, and hung on every point.

But even Leblanc's presence couldn't affect the outcome.