Caroline Wozniacki's losing streak is over, and she avenged her earlier loss to Christina McHale on the way to winning perhaps her favorite tournament for a FOURTH consecutive year. She defeated qualifier Petra Cetkovska in the final of New Haven 6-4, 6-1. Winning this tournament has served to springboard to the US Open final and semis the last two years, respectively. We will now see if this win has similar effects this year, especially after her struggles of the past couple months. This title is her 6th of the season and the 18th of her career. And the losing finalist Cetkovska has been on a tear over the past few months playing both ITF and WTA tournaments, notably making the 4th round at Wimbledon and now with wins over Li, Bartoli, and Radwanska in New Haven.
John Isner grew in Greensboro, NC, just 30 minutes from Winston-Salem, where the former New Haven tournament moved this year. On the campus of Wake Forest University, the local kid made good, knocking Baghdatis in the quarters, then Roddick in the semis, before ousting qualifier Julien Benneteau in the final 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. It is his second title of the year and third for his career and caps a successful US Open series, at least at the smaller tournaments. Isner did struggle in Montreal and Cincinatti but will hope to have to good US Open, the scene of perhaps his greatest triumph, a win over Roddick in the 3rd round in '09.
Finally, the WTA had a new tournament in Dallas, TX, where it could have been called the Sabine Lisicki Invitational. Lisicki demolished Aravane Rezai 6-2, 6-1 in the final but dropped only 13 games over 5 matches with dominating wins over Mirza, Brianti, Bondarenko the younger, Begu, and Rezai. Like Isner, it is her second title of the year and third of her career. She certainly has a bright future ahead if she can stay healthy. Also though for Rezai, this is by far the best result she's had since her massive slump incurred after winning Madrid last year.
Now, to the Open!
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