The windy conditions at Indian Wells were called “impossible to play in” by Caroline Wozniacki, and Rennae Stubbs, Serena Williams’ former coach, agreed that the Dane was pretty much right.
Wozniacki played tennis for the first time since 2019 in Indian Wells on Wednesday. She had been retired for three and a half years before she came out of retirement last August. Wozniacki beat Zhu Lin in a very close first set, 7-6 (6), but the match had to be stopped because of rain.
During the first set, Wozniacki joked, “It’s impossible to play in this wind.”
Stubbs, who was hired by Williams specifically for her last event at the 2022 US Open, agreed with Wozniacki that Indian Wells is one of the best places to play in terms of conditions. With Helena Sukova in 1993 and Lisa Raymond in 2002, Stubbs won two Indian Wells doubles tournaments during her career. She was a six-time Grand Slam doubles winner.
After Wozniacki said something about X, Stubbs wrote, “4 of the windiest places on tour.” Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, and Eastbourne. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to play there because of the wind. It was too windy for me to warm up before a final in Indian Wells, and the same thing happened in Doha. Miami skipped a day because it was too risky.
Wozniacki had a tough match against Zhu, but she won the first set before the match was suspended.
2011 Indian Wells winner Wozniacki didn’t get off to a good start in the match. Zhu took an early break and went ahead 2-0. With back-to-back breaks, Wozniacki came back from an early break down to win the next four games and go ahead 4-2 overall.
It looked like things were going in Wozniacki’s favour, but she was broken back in the seventh game, and she missed a break point in the eighth game, giving Zhu a 4–4 tie in the first set.
Wozniacki saved two break points in a row in the 11th game to take a 6-5 lead. However, she missed a set point in the 12th game, which Zhu used to force a tie-break.
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In the tie-break for the first set, Wozniacki was ahead 6-4 and had two set points in a row.
However, the Dane missed both of those set points because she didn’t realise she had one late in the 12th game. But Wozniacki didn’t freak out when she got her fourth set point. She finally understood what was going on and won the first set very closely.
In the second set, there was only one game played before the rain stopped the match. Zhu held on to her serve the whole time. The game will go on Thursday.
