The second seed Caroline Wozniacki saw her hopes of winning a first Wimbledon title shot down by Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova amid a hail of flying ants on Wednesday. The Australian Open champion recovered from 5-1 down in the final set to level at 5-5 but could not finish the job as the world No 35 held her nerve to win 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 send Wozniacki tumbling out in the second round.
“I was really nervous because Caroline will never miss and you need to win the points, play the winners,” Makarova said. “I knew that and I think I was a little hurried because I thought I needed to be more aggressive. But I am so happy that I got calm at 5-5 and did my work again. I told myself, no, you’re not going to lose this match, with all those match points. I told myself that, I forgot it and started over.”
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In terms of ranking, this was not in the same class as the losses for Petra Kvitova, Maria Sharapova and Sloane Stephens, each of whom were beaten in the first round here by far lower-ranked opposition. Makarova is a former top 10 player who beat Wozniacki at last year’s US Open and she has beaten Serena Williams and Venus Williams at grand slams before.
The left-hander led 5-1 in the first set and though Wozniacki hit back to 5-4, Makarova held on to move ahead. Wozniacki also complained about the hordes of flying ants that had invaded Court No 1, but the Dane recovered to level the match.
Makarova then romped to a 5-1 lead, only for Wozniacki to storm back again. In the second round in Melbourne this year, she trailed Jana Fett of Germany 5-1 in the decider only to come back to win and when she recovered from 5-1 down, saving four match points, to level at 5-5, it looked like she might do it again.
But Makarova recovered her poise, held serve for 6-5 and finally snatched victory on her sixth match point as she hit a backhand drive volley into the open court, setting up a third-round clash with Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic.