Liverpool International Tennis 2008: Impressive Caroline Wozniacki powers into next round

Jun 13 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

OVERALL it was undoubtedly Ladies Day at Calderstones Park yesterday, with most impressive performances from the two past winners of the Ladies’ event, who look likely to produce a truly memorable final.

Former Wimbledon junior champion Caroline Wozniacki, who claimed the Calderstones event two years ago and is now ranked 32 in the world, gave a truly splendid performance against Tamaryn Hendley of Belgium, who played some splendid shots from time to time but never really looked like getting on top.

The Belgian did well to claim two games in each set but had to fight tremendously hard even to do that, while Caroline produced a non-stop stream of brilliant shots, especially from the baseline.

Her speed around the court, plus the power and accuracy of her shots was highly impressive and Hendler put up a really good performance, hitting several memorable winners, but Wozniacki was so consistently accurate and powerful that she was always in control.

Her probable opponent in the final, Ashley Harkleroad, looked just as good against a much bigger adversary in Olga Savchuk and the coming Ladies’ final between her and Wozniacki is sure to be a truly memorable one.

Moving over to the men, the Australian teenager Bernard Tomic, who lost his opening match to our own Ken Skupski, had little trouble hitting back with an impressive straight sets victory over Britain’s Sebastian Jackson, who had won the qualifying event.

The left-handed Jackson, who is a comparative veteran, produced plenty of excellent shots and held his own to go 3-3 in the first set, before the young but powerful Tomic, achieved a decisive breakthrough.

He was far more reliable with his ground strokes, although Jackson did serve pretty well and there was never a great deal of doubt about the result.

The other major men’s conflict saw two previous Wimbledon champions, Pat Cash and Goran Ivanisevic, produce some highly spectacular shots, although one always had the feeling that they had both agreed to keep the score pretty close.

Ivanisevic took the first set 7-6 and then took an early lead in the second, but as expected Cash then started hitting the mark more often and retaliated with a set of his own at 7-5.

In the decisive set it always looked as though Ivanisevic was in command, due to some wonderful passing shots, but as expected the score got extremely close before Ivanisevic finally claimed the result at 10-7.

To the delight of an enthusiastic crowd, Ivanisevic then received a special cup, named the Legends Trophy, which he thoroughly deserved for his speed and enthusiasm.

He has recently criticised British tennis for throwing cash away in large amounts, instead of bringing through more players and it is likely a good many people over here agree with him.