The Miami Open tennis tournament has arrived at the women’s final and that’s where we’ll pick up our tennis picks. Looking back to the semifinals, we had a 1-1 day on the card. We expected Venus Williams to beat Johanna Konta but that didn’t come to fruition. Williams battled in both sets but ended up losing 6-4, 7-5. However, we did get a win with our other selection as we had Carolina Wozniacki. She lost the first set 7-5 but then smoked Karolina Pliskova 6-1, 6-1 in the final two sets.
Looking ahead to Satruday’s final, neither player is seeded inside the top nine, but both proved more than worthy of this achievement. It’s a fascinating time in women’s tennis. The Indian Wells final two weeks ago matched the No. 8 and No. 14 seeds, and now the Miami final has matched the No. 10 and No. 12 seeds. Only one player in the top seven of the rankings, Karolina Pliskova, made the semifinals in both Indian Wells and Miami. With Serena Williams out, women’s tennis is wide-open. This final affirms that notion. Here’s a look at our tennis picks for the last women’s match at the Miami Open.
Caroline Wozniacki vs. Johanna Konta
At various points in her career, Caroline Wozniacki has ignited the belief that she will track down a major championship and give her career the completeness it deserves. Wozniacki’s most notable career feature is that she gained the World No. 1 ranking without winning a major title. She has been a major finalist, but she has never been able to knock the door down. She had a very good run at the beginning of this decade, then went through a slump in which more powerful hitters pushed her around. Then, in late 2014, she found one revival, making the U.S. Open final before Serena Williams stood in her way and soundly defeated her. Nevertheless, that surge created the thought that Wozniacki was going to stick around and contend for a big title – if Serena lost focus.
Serena did not.
Serena won the first three majors of 2015 and reached the semifinals of the fourth. Wozniacki couldn’t gain a foothold, and her game slipped again. Even at the beginning of this year, 2017, she didn’t seem likely to threaten for big titles. Johanna Konta thrashed her in Australia, hitting through the court and meeting no real resistance. Entering the Indian Wells-Miami swing, Wozniacki was not a name on most people’s lips.
Yet, Wozniacki put in a solid quarterfinal result in California, and in Miami, on the opposite American coast, she has gone the distance. In the semifinals against Pliskova – the one top-five WTA player who is performing well at the moment – Wozniacki committed too many errors in a very tight first set, but as soon as she cleaned up her game, she wore out Pliskova by forcing the Czech to cover a lot of court, running side to side. Pliskova got tired. She lost velocity on her dangerous first serve, and Wozniacki basically wore her out in three sets. It was a grand triumph for the No. 12 seed from Denmark, who is popular in the Miami area, having attended a lot of Miami Heat games and making her presence known on social media during the team’s run of four straight Eastern Conference NBA titles under LeBron James and the Big Three. More importantly, she cashed for us with our tennis picks.
This is not an easy match to pick. Konta won a tight two-hour battle against Venus Williams in the late Thursday semifinal. She’ll have Friday to rest, minimizing the negative effect of that struggle. However, Wozniacki played the early semi on Thursday, making her very fresh for this match. If Konta isn’t razor-sharp, Wozniacki is playing well enough to keep Konta off balance. Should this match go into a third set, Wozniacki is likely to be better equipped to play longer rallies and run down shots. If Konta is the favorite, there should be no argument of the claim, but the feeling here is that Konta has to win this in straights, and that margin could become very complicated for her if she does not. Take Woz with your tennis picks.
Pick: Wozniacki in three sets
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