Caroline Wozniacki’s go-to karaoke tune is Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’. And yet, given all she has experienced in her 27 eventful years, Wozniacki would not.
Certainly not when she is fresh from one of her finest seasons, which ended with her biggest career title, the WTA Finals in Singapore. Not when she is back in the top three for the first time since 2012, happy and settled in her private life with fiancé David Lee, and widely tipped to make a long-overdue Grand Slam breakthrough in 2018.
Turn back time? Not when so much has already been achieved, including 27 singles titles and 67 weeks at No.1, when it seems there is still so much more to come. The major is, as before, still missing, yet that hole in her CV would have been far from Wozniacki’s mind when she arrived at the US Open less than 17 months ago with a world ranking of No.74 following a period lost to an ankle injury.
“The break from tennis for me was great. I really enjoyed being home and just doing normal stuff, and not being able to hit a ball actually felt nice,” Wozniacki recalled. “Once I got back, I just took my time and made sure that I was properly healed, the body was fine. And when I felt ready, I came back and I was enjoying to play out there. I strongly believe everything happens for a reason, and maybe I wouldn't be here if that wouldn't have happened.”
Wozniacki was speaking in Singapore, when the exclamation mark on a mightily consistent eight-final season came in the form of an emphatic triumph at the WTA’s showcase event. Three bagel sets against fellow top-tenners and a 6-4 6-4 result in the decider against Venus Williams had former world No.8 Alicia Molik speaking of the inevitability that the two-time year-end No.1 would finally claim that elusive major.
Yet when Wozniacki was asked if, in some ways, she wished the year that finished so triumphantly would just roll straight on into the next, then she was adamant that what was needed was a long holiday. And one was taken. Indeed, the lessons the super-fit Dane has accumulated from her 10 consecutive years finishing inside the top 20 have included a few of the physical kind.
“I just think I've learned to tone down some of the workouts and really just tailor it to my body,’’ Wozniacki said at the US Open. “Because, you know, everyone wants to stay young. And I'm not old, but I've been on tour for many years… and the body can't handle the same as it used to when I was 18, 19. So I just had to really think of that.’’
On court, the counter-punching defensive demon has beefed up her serve and upped a long-modest winner count to the point where it reached 19 in the Singapore final against Venus Williams. Grand Slam results were relatively modest, topped by a quarter-final at her least favourite, the French Open, but consistency was otherwise the byword for a year in which she was a quarter-finalist or better 14 times. With only third-round points to defend at Melbourne Park, and top spot within reach, much upside remains for Wozniacki in a wide-open women’s game.
There are those who will disparage her lack of a major title, despite ranking among the top 10 all-time for weeks spent at No.1 - and the only one missing a piece of Grand Slam silverware. Should Wozniacki return to the summit, she would pass her pal Serena Williams for the biggest gap between stints there. Regardless, the popular baseliner, whose Twitter following now tops 30 million, insists she has learnt not to care about the critics.
“I know I have done well and I have had a great career,” says the winner of at least one WTA title every year for a decade, and more than US$26 million in prize money. “I'm proud of my achievements, and I'm proud of being able to just fight my way from a little kid to all of a sudden being one of the best tennis players in the world. Very few people can say that, and I'm proud of that.”
