Caroline Wozniacki : World no.1 are you kidding me?

I have been following tennis rankings for more than a decade now. The most bewildering thing about these rankings (particularly the ladies)are the way they function. Rankings in a way should showcase the best players on tour.

Take the case of the Dane Caroline Wozniaki, the top ranked player on the WTA charts for over a year now .

Her claim to fame are the numerous premier level tournaments that she has won. She hasn’t won a grand slam yet and doesn’t look like winning one either with the arrival of new blood on the tour. Just a look into her points tally will tell you that she has a 3000 point difference over second ranked Maria Sharapova. Another glaring stat is that she has so far participated in 22 tournaments compared to 15 of the second placed player. As things stand today nobody is close to displacing the Dane anytime soon.

Why is it that a player who is the best when it comes to playing premier level events chokes on the grand slam stage? The greatness of a player is measured by her grand slam success. It is for this very reason that Serena despite being out of the top 10 for while is still the best we have on the tennis circuit. Her records on the big 4(grand slam) stage support the argument of her being a modern great, never mind her behavior on court this year at the US Open Finals or for that matter the verbal abuse incident that happened two years ago at the US Open against Kim Clijisters.

Some years back a similar situation arose with Clijisters becoming the number 1 despite not winning the majors. She lost frequently to fellow Belgium Justine Henin at the majors but was dominant otherwise.

Fortunately, Mens Tennis has not faced this kind of anomaly. The World No.1 is on most occasions the best player at the time be it Hewitt, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic barring few odd names for a short period of few weeks.

Coming back to Wozniacki, I believe her losses at the slams are purely of the mental nature rather than being of a lack of ability.

It is also time for a better ranking system that could replace the present system that is faulty. Maybe awarding far greater points for the slams and the season ending tour championships could be a start.

At the end I would like to mention that not all is lost for Caroline as she is still just 21 and has the future ahead of her. Credit should be given where it is due and Wozniacki’s durability is a positive aspect of hers(although being 21, one expects her to be injury free and play her heart and soul out).

The day she stops letting the pressure of being no.1 affect her mentally, will be the day she would start winning for sure. Maybe that day would be the one when she would not be the top ranked player entering the contest.