At Indian Wells, bees, a bad toe, and another Sinner victory

INDIAN WELLS — Quarter-final Thursday, as the round is known at the BNP Paribas, turned out to be the afternoon Carlos Alcaraz had to worry more about back-biting (from insects) than backhands. The round “The Woz” could no longer go toe-to-toe with her comeback dream.

The round Jannik Sinner (16-0) remained undefeated, Tommy Paul remained on track and the world’s second-ranked male, Carlos Alcaraz, managed to survive, unlike top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who three days earlier was upset and then subsequently decided to pull out of next week’s event at Miami.

And for the round, the temperature, here often in the 80s and usually in the 70s, was no higher than that mid-60s, not that the weather seemed to matter to the boisterous fans packed in the 16,200-seat main stadium.

If it’s too cold to go to the pool, go to the courts — especially with the cast of those entered. Not that the stories all dealt with the actual tasks of cracking serves and hitting returns.

Three games into the Alcaraz-Alexander Zverev match, eventually won by Alcaraz, 6-3, 6-1, a swarm of bees arrived (OK, toss in buzz lines) and the two contestants ran for safety. Officials called an apiarist (a beekeeper) who collected the swarm.

“I'm glad I'm not there anymore… That's crazy. There was nothing like 30 minutes ago. I would run away," said Iga Świątek, watching from the interview room after her 6-4, 6-1 over The Woz, Caroline Wozniacki.

Wozniacki, once No. 1 before she married former Warriors center David Lee and gave birth to two children, is coming back from retirement. She injured a big toe a few days ago in a win over Angelique Kerber, and when the pain grew so severe, she called a stop against Świątek.

Sinner is the Italian from the Dolomite region of the Alps where they speak as much German — if not more — than Italian. But whatever language he employs his racquets pay attention.

He was a 6-3, 6-3, winner over Jiri Lehecka, and after taking his first Grand Slam, the Australian  Open, he had the rest of the pros in awe. He has great speed and beautiful consistent groundstrokes. And even more notably, he has the confidence that is a byproduct of success. Or the reason for the success.

And yes, the former teen, Coco Gauff, now age 20, also won, 6-4, 6-3 over Yue Yuan.

“It wasn’t the best serving,” concedes Gauff, “but the groundstrokes worked. I just try and take the positives.”

Djokovic stays cool in a very hot U.S. Open

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The air was unhealthy. The heat index was unreal. It was sport in a steam bath, officials intervening, players withdrawing, everybody — on court or in the stands — more concerned with what was on the thermometer (the temperature reached 95 degrees) than what was on the scorecards. 

This is America’s tennis championship, the U.S. Open, and so far no one has been able to whip that feisty lady Mother Nature. She’s been in control from the first match. “Extreme weather conditions,” was the official announcement. Are they ever.

The end of summer in New York, Odell Beckham Jr. getting headlines on the front and back page of the New York Post for signing with the football Giants; the Yankees losing ground in their attempt to overtake the Red Sox; and Roger Federer and Serena Williams back at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, out where the Mets play at Citi Field and the jets swoop low when they land at LaGuardia.

The Open is noisy, as is everything in New York; exciting, since if you can make it here you can make it anywhere; and hot, although rarely as hot as this August, when on Tuesday five men — none of them named Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal — withdrew because of conditions so severe that it was decided to give everyone a 10-minute break before a possible third set.

There are now retractable roofs on two of the courts, including the main one, the 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Court, but understandably officials from the U.S. Tennis Association do not want to close the roofs unless there is rain. Players under cover would have an unfair advantage over those on the outside courts.

Not that those in the night matches, Federer and Maria Sharapova among them on Tuesday, don’t have an advantage over those out in the midday sun, which as the lyrics go is for mad dogs and Englishmen. And on Tuesday for Djokovic, a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 winner over Martin Fucsovics, and Caroline Wozniacki, who beat one-time champ Sam Stosur, 6-3, 6-2.

“Yeah, it was very hot conditions for sure,” said Wozniacki, the Australian Open champion. “I just tried to stay cool. We got a little lucky. In the shade, I was able to cool down a little bit. So that helped.”

Marin Cilic, who won the Open four years ago, was a winner when his opponent quit — well, the explanation is “retired” — at 1-1 in the third set after losing the first two sets, 7-6, 6-1.

“Conditions were extremely tough,’ said Cilic. ”Very humid, very hot. The ball was flying a bit more than usual, so I was having a tough time trying to control it. I was missing some easy balls, making unforced errors that are not that usual for me.”

He won. Whatever the situation, the better players inevitably do, which is why they are the better players.

Djokovic was the best player a couple of years ago, in the rankings and in the minds of most others. He had a stretch of four straight Grand Slams, from the 2015 U.S. Open through the 2016 French Open. Then he collapsed.

Maybe because of a bad elbow. Maybe because of reported family troubles. Now, after a win at Wimbledon a month and a half ago and victory over Federer in Canada, he’s back.

He did worry Tuesday because he said the heat made him feel sick during his match, even asking for assistance. The No. 6 seed, Djokovic recovered while taking the 10-minute break before the fourth set and then breezed without losing a game.

Argentine Leonardo Mayer, one of those who couldn’t finish, said of the allowed recess, “Ten minutes? I would have needed an hour and a half.”   

Djokovic and Fucsovics only needed to take an ice bath. That was cool, in more than one way.

S.F. Examiner: No black bras, green headbands at 21st-century Wimbledon

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

WIMBLEDON, England — The authorities are making underwear checks at Wimbledon. But only for the women, of course. “It’s creepy,” said Caroline Wozniacki, one of the top female players and social media targets. The ladies get equal pay at The Championships, but very unequal scrutiny.

It’s still the 19th Century around here. Eugenie Bouchard, the Canadian, reportedly was fined the other day for wearing a black bra under the obligatory white blouse, causing Claire Cohen of the Telegraph to write, “It’s 2015 and we’re still discussing female tennis players’ lingerie over their performance on court.”

Read the full story here.

©2015 The San Francisco Examiner

Los Angeles Times: Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki comes out ahead in the long run

By Art Spander
Los Angeles Times

She's the Wizard of Woz, the woman who ran the New York City Marathon — "You don't know what the wall is until you hit it," she said — who posed, tastefully, for the recent Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue . . . who once was ranked No. 1 . . . who only Sunday won the Malaysian Open, her 23rd WTA tournament victory,

Caroline Wozniacki, one of the many stars at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, at age 24 has done almost everything. Other than win a Grand Slam tournament.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

Bleacher Report: Revived Caroline Wozniacki Eyes 2014 US Open Title After Maria Sharapova Upset

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

NEW YORK — We called her the Woz, a word play on the Wiz, and on a court Caroline Wozniacki certainly looked like a wiz, a winner, even if she didn’t own a Grand Slam. There wasn’t a shot she couldn’t chase down; there wasn’t a ball she couldn’t return.

She was No. 1 in the women’s rankings for 67 weeks, and in 2009 she made it to the final of the U.S. Open. A loss to Kim Clijsters seemed only a blip, a hiccup as the tennis people say. The Woz was 19, and had to get better.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.

Wozniacki stands up for McIlroy, and herself

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – They’re not knocking Caroline Wozniacki this week. It’s her boyfriend who’s taking the figurative punches. That would be the walkoff lad himself, Rory McIlroy. And yes, contends the Woz, he’s still her boyfriend.
  
They were sport's fun couple, until they were transformed into sport’s troubled couple. Wozniacki, having fallen from No. 1 in the women’s world tennis rankings, is being faulted for too many faults – serving, that is -- and a slightly overdone impression of her friend Serena Williams, which was labeled everything from silly to racist.
   
McIlroy, still No. 1 in the men’s golf rankings, walked off the course during the second round of last week’s Honda Classic and walked into a buzzsaw, everyone from Jack Nicklaus to McIlroy’s playing partner at the Honda, Ernie Els, reminding him – and us – that his judgment was as poor as his game.
  
"Apropos of nothing and pertinent to everything," was the cleverly cutting comment on McIlroy’s departure after the eighth hole last Friday by James Corrigan of the London Daily Telegraph.
  
McIlroy first complained, “I was not in a good place mentally.” Corrigan, on hearing McIlroy say later he withdrew because of an impacted wisdom tooth, pointed out, “He meant he was not in a good place dentally.”
  
Preparing to play in this week’s Cadillac Championship at Doral, on Wednesday, McIlroy gave his unblinking apology to the media gathered there, and to a Golf Channel audience, which three time zones and some 2,500 miles distant included Ms. Wozniacki,
  
“He said what he had to say,” Wozniacki remarked at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden where she and the game’s other top stars, women and men, minus one -- a very important one, Serena -- are competing in the BNP Paribas Open.
    
“He was honest,” Wozniacki insisted of McIlroy’s comments. “Now he’s got to go out there this week and hopefully play some good golf.”
    
A few days back, the London papers carried stories saying that the 22-year-old Wozniacki, of Denmark, and the 23-year-old McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, had ended their two-year romance.
  
“We’ve been in the media spotlight so long separately,” Wozniacki answered when asked what’s like to date another headliner. “It’s nothing new. We’ve gotten so used to it, we don’t really pay attention anymore – unless it’s a rumor like the one the other day that we’ve broken up. Oh really? Thanks for letting me know.”
 
There’s no place to hide, as McIlroy conceded. He’s growing up in front of the world. His mistakes – you don’t withdraw from a golf tournament for anything short of a family emergency or serious ailment – are learning experiences with millions ready to offer advice or abuse.
  
Before Wimbledon last year, columnist Oliver Brown of the Telegraph dropped down to one of the warmup events for the women at Eastbourne on the English Channel, where Wozniacki was playing and McIlroy was watching.
  
“Quietly, and assuredly not of their own choosing, McIlroy and Wozniacki have been elevated to the realm of the power couple; the ‘Brangelina’ of sport, if you like,” Brown offered. “But their recent results encourage a thought, however uncharitable, that the pair are not exactly aiding each other’s professional progress.
  
“McIlroy has missed four cuts in his past five tournaments and, according to one observer, wafted at his final putt in the U.S. Open at San Francisco with an absentmindedness to suggest he could not wait to board the latest departure of ‘Wozilroy Airlines’ fast enough.

“His belle, meanwhile, has lost four of her past six matches and is without a WTA title in 10 months.”
   
Two months later, in August 2012, McIlroy would win his second major, the PGA Championship, heading to money titles for the year on both the PGA Tour and European Tour. So much for being absentminded.
  
And while Wozniacki hasn’t won in a while, in February she reached the semifinals at Dubai and the quarters at Doha. And who are we to interfere in the love lives of others, famous or not?
    
“I don’t think I have a problem,” said Wozniacki. “When you’re No. 1 and not winning everything, there’s basically just one way to go, and that’s down. I’m healthy. I feel like I’m playing well, so people can say what they want. But I have a life, and I’m happy I have a life.”
     
The problem, then, is not hers, it’s ours. Caroline Wozniacki isn’t whining. True, she isn’t winning either, but she has won, 20 tournaments and more than $14 million. And she’s known what it’s like to be at the top.
  
“Everybody wants to be No. 1,’’ Wozniacki affirmed. “No doubt about it. But right now, my focus is just trying to play well, to try and win tournaments.”
   
On the other side of the country, her boyfriend, Rory McIlroy, virtually was saying the exact same thing.

RealClearSports: The (Too) Long Nights at the Open

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK – “In a real dark night of the soul, it’s always 3 o’clock in the morning.” That’s from F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it came to mind during a changeover and between yawns as Roger Federer battled Juan Monaco.



New York is the city that never sleeps. Nobody wrote it’s the city where it never rains, because Tuesday the U.S. Open Tennis Championships were washed out and there was no play. Well, there was, for 1 hour, 12 minutes.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

Newsday (N.Y.): Venus, Serena, Wozniacki out at Wimbledon

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England — They were talking of what could be. But on the warm Monday when Serena and Venus Williams, within two hours of each other, were ousted from Wimbledon, the issue should be of what was.

They had been the prima donnas, in the positive context of the term, of the All England Lawn Tennis Championships. One or the other won the previous four years — Serena in 2010, 2009, Venus in 2008, 2007 — and nine of the last 11.

The domination came to a halt as the second week of the 145th Wimbledon began, Marion Bartoli of France stopping an erratically hitting Serena, 6-3, 7-6 (6), in one fourth-round match and Tsvetana Pironkova defeating Venus, 6-2, 6-3, in another. That was the same score Pironkova, of Bulgaria, beat Venus last year in a quarterfinal.

Were they upsets? Perhaps, although with the Williamses coming off long absences because of health problems, perhaps not. Were they surprises? Absolutely, as was 24th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova's 1-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5 win over the top seed, Caroline Wozniacki, who despite her place on top of the WTA rankings never has won a Grand Slam event.

A minor surprise on the men's side was the 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-4 triumph by Mardy Fish overTomas Berdych, one of last year's finalists. Fish, unexpectedly, guaranteed the United States would not go without someone in either men's or women's quarterfinals for the first time since 2006 and only the second time since 1911.

Venus, 31, hadn't played for five months because of a strained hip flexor until coming back two weeks ago. Serena was out nearly a year. She severely cut her right foot stepping on glass a week after winning Wimbledon, then was diagnosed with life-threatening pulmonary thrombosis, and finally developed a hematoma that required surgery.

"Considering my condition," said Serena, "I think I really did well. I never came here thinking I would lose. I was able to hang in there, and I can only get better. And that potentially can be really scary, because I can only go up from here, and I can do so much more."

Venus described her play against the 5-10 Pironkova, who has defeated her three times in a row, as "inexplicable." Venus missed overheads, swinging volleys, "shots I never miss."

But Venus reminded that both Williams sisters "hit the ground running," because they didn't want to miss another Grand Slam tournament.

"At least I wasn't making errors trying to keep the ball in," Venus said. "I made errors that normally would go as winners. So those balls will land pretty soon . . . I got ready for this tournament so fast. You wouldn't believe how quick it happened. With more time I can definitely play better.''

Serena, who will be 30 in September, tried to be philosophical. "Even if today I lost," she said, "I was able to kind of hang in there and play tough . . . I would have been sad being at home and watching it on TV, like I'm going to be soon."

The thought of some in tennis is it would have been sad for women's tennis if, with so little preparation, either Serena or Venus won. Could she appreciate that? "Yeah," Serena said sarcastically, "I'm super happy I lost. Go women's tennis."

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http://www.newsday.com/sports/tennis/venus-serena-wozniacki-out-at-wimbledon-1.2988416
Copyright © 2011 Newsday. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Wozniacki is an ascending star -- who keeps shining brighter

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- She's not there yet, not holding the winner's trophy. There still are three more matches. "I feel like everything is possible," said Caroline Wozniacki. She is in full flight, an athlete in ascendancy, for whom nothing seems impossible.

This time the opponent wasn't one of those wild cards like Chelsey Gullickson or one of those players from the depths like Kai-Chen Chang, No. 84 in the rankings, or Yung-Jan Chan, No. 77, that Wozniacki was certain to beat.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Loving U.S. Open and New York City ... there's nothing like it

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- The hottest show in town? It isn't "A Little Night Music," as popular as that Sondheim hit may be. It's a little day and night tennis at the U.S. Open, off Broadway and off the charts.

This place, the Billie Jean King Center, is a swirl of forehands and backslapping, oversized tennis balls to get autographed and oversized Carnegie Deli sandwiches to get munched.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Wonderful Woz displays wizardry on and off the court

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com


NEW YORK -- She's the Wonderful Wizard of Woz, a beautiful blend of blonde hair and big backhands who has opponents running and paparazzi chasing.

Caroline Wozniacki has been taking no prisoners and very little time on what Thursday became her summer of love -- or double bagels, if you prefer.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Tennis's Version of March Madness

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- The first game of the tournament, and the favorite, Notre Dame is upset, delighting maybe everyone who didn't have the Irish winning in their pool.

Which is why basketball, any team sport, is so different from the tournament now going on here, the BNP Paribas tennis open. 

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

CBSSports.com: Mommy dearest: Clijsters caps amazing two-week run at U.S. Open

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- Mamma mia, can that young lady play tennis.

In a summer of marvelous sports stories, from Tom Watson's great run at the British Open to Derek Jeter overtaking Lou Gehrig as the Yankees' all-time hit leader to the ascent of Melanie Oudin, maybe nothing compares to that of Kim Clijsters.

Out of competition for two years to marry and give birth, Clijsters stepped from the past, an accidental tourist with an effective forehand, and won the U.S. Open.

In a match no one would have foreseen two weeks ago when this tournament began, Clijsters on Sunday night defeated teenager Caroline Wozniacki, 7-5, 6-3, then fell to the court in tearful bliss.

A tournament that's been battered by a literal storm, rain delaying the women's final 24 hours, and a figurative one, the expletive-filled tirade by Serena Williams in losing her semifinal to Clijsters, came to a poignant conclusion before 23,351 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Among those fans, in the loosest definition of the word, was Clijsters' 18-month-old daughter, Jada Elly, happily chomping on a pacifier in a nanny's lap while her mother overcame Wozniacki's offsetting moon balls.

In a sense, this also was a title defense for the 26-year-old Clijsters, the Belgian who won the championship in 2005, was unable to defend in 2006 and then retired from tennis in 2007. Or so she thought.

But after playing in a requested exhibition last spring with Tim Henman against husband and wife Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff to inaugurate the new roof at Wimbledon, Clijsters remembered the joy of the game, hustled to get into shape and returned to the women's tour -- with child and husband Brian Lynch along for the ride.

This U.S. Open was only her third tournament after the comeback -- she was able to enter on a wild card given because of her reputation by the U.S. Tennis Association. Then she wins. It's a script too unbelievable but very acceptable.

"I don't have words for this," said Clijsters, who then joked, "I'm just glad I got to come back to defend my title of 2005.

"This is so exciting for me. This was not really in our plan. I just wanted to get back into the rhythm of playing tennis. I have to thank the USTA for giving me the wild card to come back here."

Wozniacki, the first Danish woman to get to a Grand Slam final, was the No. 9 seed. She's a fashion-model blonde who enjoys the attention and plays a counter-punching game that threw off Clijsters for a while. The 19-year-old Wozniacki won four straight games in the first set.

But she was in uncharted territory. And even if Wozniacki had played and won more matches on tour in the last year while Clijsters only a few months ago was playing housewife, not tennis, Kim's experience showed. Winners never lose the skill or the drive that made them winners.

Four other mothers had previously won Grand Slams: Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, Sarah Palfrey Cooke, Margaret Court and, in 1980, Evonne Goolagong Cawley.

"I didn't think it could happen again," said Mary Carillo, the astute TV commentator. "But it did. Amazing."

Because of the weather problems, both women's semis were held simultaneously late Saturday night. And while Clijsters was beating Serena on Ashe, Wozniacki was whipping Yanina Wickmayer next door at Louis Armstrong Stadium -- before only 500 fans.

So, before a very full house at Ashe, she thanked the crowd, in English, Danish and Polish -- her parents immigrated from Poland before she was born. Then, maybe feeling sympathetic to Wozniacki or maybe just a bit confused, USTA president Lucy Garvin introduced Wozniacki as the champion, drawing chuckles from both Wozniacki and Clijsters.

Clijsters earned $1.6 million for the victory and said, understandably, it's been a great two weeks in New York but she couldn't wait to return to the domestic life.

"It's the greatest feeling, being a mother," said Clijsters. "I just can't wait to spend the next few weeks with [Jada]. We tried to plan her nap a little later today.

"When I played my first round here two weeks ago, it meant so much to me. How warm the people were. It embarrassed me. But it helped me keep my focus. I had to keep fighting, especially the last few matches."

On the way, Clijsters, unseeded, defeated both the Williams sisters, Venus in a strange fourth-round match with a 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 score, and then Serena in an even stranger match, Serena losing because of a code violation for cursing a line judge. That was enough drama for a while.

Before she won the 2005 Open, Clijsters was known as someone who collapsed under pressure. And Sunday night she admitted to a bit of nerves during the final game.

She overcame those nerves and the two-year layoff. She's the once and current champ and arguably the mother of the year.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12201999
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Despite loss, Oudin captures hearts of American tennis fans

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- Skill triumphed over dreams, experience over enthusiasm. Melanie Oudin's magic simply couldn't compare to Caroline Wozniacki's game.

It was great while it lasted, a Munchkin of an athlete, coming back from deficits again and again in her national tennis tournament, winning when she was expected to lose, thrilling a country that loves an underdog, especially an American underdog.

But Wozniacki, the great Dane, ruined the fairytale, defeating Oudin 6-2, 6-2 Wednesday night in their U.S. Open quarterfinal, and other than advancing to the semis seemed to feel as bad as the majority of the 23,000 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

"I'm sorry I won against Melanie," said Wozniacki, who well understood how New York in particular and the United States in general had taken to the 5-6 teenager.

"I know you guys wanted her to win," Wozniacki, a teenager herself who at 19 is two years older than Oudin, told the crowd. "Hopefully I won your guys' hearts."

Oudin, in her four previous matches, definitely did win those hearts. That's because she also won the matches, all of which were over Russians, including in the second round against the No. 4 seed Elena Dementieva.

Each of Melanie's opponents got rattled by the way the kid from the Atlanta suburbs kept ripping shots at them.

Wozniacki, the first Scandinavian woman to get to the quarters -- and now to the semifinals -- of a Grand Slam tournament, did not.

She is the daughter of a father who was a soccer star in Poland, then Denmark, and a mother who was an excellent volleyball player. Caroline has an athlete's mentality, not to mention wonderful hand-eye coordination. She is the only Western European among the top 20 in the women's rankings.

And she never gave Oudin a chance.

"Caroline played a really good match," Oudin said. "I started off slow. I wasn't able to come back. She's such a strong player. She doesn't give you anything for free."

Wozniacki forced Oudin to play as Oudin had forced Dementieva, Maria Sharapova and Nadia Petrova to play, getting the ball back until the person across the net could not.

"She plays incredible defense," Oudin said of Wozniacki. "Makes me hit a thousand balls. I don't know what else I could have done. I could have been more consistent and been more patient, but she really made me think out there and made me have to hit a winner to win the point."

But Oudin didn't hit winners. She whacked balls into the net. Or wide. Or long. Suddenly, broken in the second game of the first set, Oudin was down 3-0. And the first of the plaintive cries from fans still settling into their seats, "Come on, Melanie," pierced the haunting silence.

Because Melanie couldn't get going, the fans, who had made her their darling, America's sweetheart, couldn't get cheering. They gasped. And murmured. But not until Oudin had a chance to break in the third game of the second set, a chance she squandered, was there an explosion of the noise that had been her companion.

Oudin's performance to get as far as she did was headline stuff in the tabloids, where she was sharing the back pages with Derek Jeter as he chased Lou Gehrig's Yankees hits record. But the result of the match against Wozniacki temporarily dimmed the amazing march for someone 55th in the world.

"I'm a perfectionist," Oudin said. "So losing today was a disappointment. I mean, I wanted to win. Losing isn't good enough for me."

Her defeat left only one American, man or woman, in America's 129-year-old tennis championships: Serena Williams is to meet Kim Clijsters in a women's semifinal. Wozniacki will play surprising Yanina Wickmayer, who like Clijsters is from Belgium, in the other semi.

Oudin showed up at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center each round with "Believe" imprinted on her pink-and-purple sneakers and a remarkable ability to track down shots at the far corners of a court. Until the quarterfinal.

"I've always been strong mentally," Oudin said. "Today I was a little bit fragile. But Caroline made me like that. She made me frustrated [so] that I had to hit a winner on her. I got some free points from the other girls because they went [at the ball] more. Caroline was extremely consistent."

Wozniacki, a 5-9 beauty who has taken as much advantage of her looks as her shots, models for Stella McCartney's line of tennis clothes from adidas. Her play has been spectacular the last few months -- she has won three tournaments.

Yet she knew how Oudin had captured the hearts and minds.

"Normally I don't like to think about the match, the person I'm playing," Wozniacki said, "but every time I turned on the TV today, there she was, Melanie. I was a little nervous."

But only a little. "I went into my own bubble," Wozniacki said.

For Oudin the bubble burst.

"These past two weeks have been a lot different for me," Oudin said. "I've gone from being just a normal tennis player to everyone in the United States knowing who I am."

Someone who, despite being outplayed by Caroline Wozniacki, they won't forget.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12181192
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.