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Caroline Wozniacki suffered another tough loss at the hands of her rival at the Wuhan Open. Sitting one day short of her 25th birthday, Monica Puig blasted away with a powerful volley of winners that took down the world number two in straight sets 7-6(10), 7-5 on Centre Court at the Wuhan Optical Valley International Tennis Centre.
It was the second straight win over the Dane and her seventh top ten wins of her career. This was the first time since the match back in Miami where the fans took a beating to the support of Wozniacki which took a toll on her concentration in a three-setter.
The Dane continued to hold the series lead but a match remained the only margin between her and the Puerto Rican. Puig hadn’t had another strong game of that degree since making this one important to overcome being eliminated in yet another tournament. With a current four-match winning streak, the soon to be 25 year old would try to pull off an upset.
She recovered from a short deficit to go for the break but had the second seed back on her forcing deuce. She avoided another break point before holding serve and remained under pressure. Puig didn’t make it easy in the second running the same path from the first that had Wozniacki battling back to force deuce again.
She got it done on the first break as the unforced errors from Puig were racking up. It was soon 3-0 for the 28-year-old who found some comfort on her service game that put Puig’s serve in trouble.
She had more than a dozen errors by the fourth that gave Wozniacki three break points. She saved every one of them landing winners that were out of reach for the world number two while increasing the first serve percentage.
She put in a lot of effort to get the win that came to her after four breaks ending Wozniacki’s streak. The Dane tried to get things going with a hold of serve but failed on deuce where Puig held on the first break to sit a game down from levelling the score.
Wozniacki decided to take a coaching call from her father to try and remedy the situation and get back on track. Puig had upped the ante with her backhand coming together gaining confidence on serve in the sixth.
With a love serve in hand, Puig went for the lead breaking Wozniacki’s service game on a second break point giving her three consecutive games. The momentum shift put the second seed on notice where she fought through every point to get to deuce and break back to even the score.
She delivered a big service game landing winners and an ace before forcing an error out of Puig to get the 5-4 hold. She couldn’t handle her opponent’s surging backhanded shots in the tenth that got her even pushing Wozniacki deeper in the set.
A break in the 11th gave her a chance to serve out the match where she aggressively attacked Wozniacki’s return but got her to deuce on a wide return. Another one gave the 28-year-old a break point chance which came on a third error that went into the net.
A tiebreak was all that was left to determine a winner and it went to the brink between the two. Puig had an edge at one point when standing two points from the set. Wozniacki closed in to make it a tug of war where they split 18 points with no sign of a clear winner. A push for the tenth point went to the Puerto Rican who had set point and won it 11-9 concluding 1 hour and 18 minutes.
The winners really came together for Puig who recorded 24 impacting the success of her first serve. With the lead in hand, the 24-year-old would try to hold Wozniacki in a rare attempt to win in straight sets.
She held to open the second set which rattled the Dane on serve where she earned easy points on errors. Wozniacki followed suit before breaking the Puerto Rican in the third to take the lead.
She secured another hold of serve before Puig answered with a service hold sitting a game down. She levelled the score and stayed that way to a four-all tie where the tension began to rise. In the ninth, Puig gained an important hold that put Wozniacki on the edge of another exit from the competition.
She struggled to keep the 24-year-old at bay who forced deuce gaining match point attempts. Wozniacki killed off two that turned the tables of errors which ran heavily in Dane’s way. Two key points gave her the win that levelled the score back at five apiece.
While there was a temporary balance, Puig knew that she had to be strong on serve in the 11th but was quickly 0-30 down. The Puerto Rican fought back to take control of the score and keep Wozniacki back to lead once again with the hope of ending it in the set.
She remained focused in the 12th gaining three match points but had two blown with Wozniacki hitting hard groundstrokes. The 28-year-old saved every one of them to force deuce but couldn’t keep her back for long.
On a third break and Puig’s seventh match point, she achieved the victory with a big return that ended the world number two in 2 hours and 24 minutes.
With a fifth straight win in tow, Puig will try to keep her winning ways alive and well as she faces China hopeful Qiang Wang in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
