CAROLINE WOZNIACKI (2)

Denmark is in mourning after the exit of Caroline Wozniacki, world number 1 and top seed, from this year's Wimbledon, in only the fourth round. It's difficult when you have only one good player and in a sport which is not traditionally Danish. Media interest has been so high, that TV2 Sport have been reduced to interviewing virtually anyone who has ever met her; this morning it was her French racket-stringer, who popped up on the screen. It also meant that I had to watch her match this afternoon instead of the Murray-Gasquet encounter on Centre Court, which I was more interested in.

As readers will know, I am not a great Wozniacki fan. My family think this is mere anti-Danish prejudice, but it is not. Here are my reasons.

She is young, athletic and has solid groundstrokes and a good serve. She is rarely injured, and plays a lot of tournaments. Put that all together, and it means she wins a lot of matches and ranking points, enough to give her the number one spot (particularly when a number of the other potential number ones, such as the Williams sisters and Clijsters, have been injured). However, when it really matters, in the major tournaments, she seems to lack the imagination to finish the points. She rarely comes into the net to volley, and seems content merely to keep the ball in play rather than going for a winner. She beat someone fairly easily last week, but still had fewer winners; it's almost as if her opponents lose rather than that she wins.

Today's defeat at the hands of 24th seed Dominika Cibulkova followed a similar pattern. Wozniacki played a solid first set and her opponent made lots of mistakes; 6-1 to the Dane. Then Cibulkova began to find her range and go for her shots. She won the second set in a tie-break; and despite being a break down in the third, came back to win it 7-5. At one point, the screen showed that she had hit 24 forehand winners during the match to Wozniacki's 7; in other words, the Slovak was trying to win, the Dane was trying not to lose.

My personal view is that Wozniacki needs to dump her father as her coach and team up with someone else. He has instilled the necessary qualities of fitness, technique and willpower; but she needs to learn how to volley, how to slice a backhand, and (most of all) how to mix it up. It will be the hardest thing in the world to dump a family member as coach; but until she does, I don't think she will win a Grand Slam tournament.

Walter Blotscher