Caroline Wozniacki wins second straight New Haven title; Verdasco takes men’s championship

Verdasco, Wozniacki win at Pilot Pen

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Caroline Wozniacki believes this is her time.

The 19-year-old from Denmark won her second consecutive Pilot Pen tennis championship Saturday beating Elena Vesnina 6-2, 6-4 in the final tuneup for the U.S. Open.

Spain’s Fernando Verdasco won the men’s title, besting American Sam Querrey 6-4, 7-6 (6).

The second-seeded Verdasco, 25, fought off four set points from the hard-serving Querrey in the second set, three of them in the tiebreaker, to win his first title of the season and third of his career.

Wozniacki’s championship was her sixth, third this year, and made her the first back-to-back champion in New Haven since Venus Williams in 2001-2002.

She did not drop a single set in her five matches this week.

“Now it’s my time,” she said. “It’s my turn to win some tournaments. I just feel I’ve had a great year. I’m so happy that it’s my name coming up a lot of times now.”

Wozniacki broke Vesnina’s serve on the match’s first game, and didn’t look back, winning in 1 hour, 16 minutes.

The 23-year-old Russian was making just her second appearance in a final. She appeared to have a chance when she broke Wozniacki to even the second set at 3-3. But Wozniacki broke right back, and went on for the straight-set win.

“I don’t do any excuses for today because Caroline, she was too good for me today,” Vesnina said. “I was doing a lot of unforced errors. Caroline, she’s a very good defending player.”

Wozniacki was unseeded when she won here a year ago. This year, she came ranked No. 9 in the world and seeded second.

“It’s really surprised me how fast everything has been going and that I’m right now 8 or 9 in the world,” she said. “That’s just amazing at age of 19, being one of the youngest players out there. Yeah, I mean, it’s what I’ve been working for so hard. I’m happy everything is going my way.”

Verdasco also had things going his way early Saturday night. He broke the 21-year-old Querrey in the third game of the match and held on to win the first set, then opened the second set with another break.

“It was tough for me to really bomb serves tonight,” Querrey said. “It was a little cold. I’m not sure what my fastest was. For the most part, I think I was around 120. A lot of times I’m around 130. So it was a little chilly. But, yeah, he did a great job returning.”

Querrey fought back, winning his serve in a seventh game that went to deuce 10 times, and breaking Verdasco in the eighth game of the second set.

The match appeared headed to a third set when Querrey took a 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker, but Verdasco won the next five points, and the match.

“I don’t know how I turned it around again, you know, with 6-3 down in the tiebreak,” Verdasco said. “I was also a little bit lucky that I served two big serves. I won the two points from 6-3 to 6-5 only with my serve, and also the double-fault he made with his 6-all. I think I was just a little bit lucky today.”

It was the second match of the day for both men. The semifinals, originally scheduled for Friday, were moved to Yale’s indoor facility Saturday morning because of the rain that has plagued the area for two days. Verdasco beat Igor Andreev of Russia 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5), while Querrey beat Argentina’s Jose Acasuso, 6-3, 6-4.