By Mike McIntyre
In a tournament where most of the top seeds have fared well, it will be No. 5 Elina Svitolina and No. 6 Caroline Wozniacki who meet in the Rogers Cup final on Sunday in Toronto. The rising star Svitolina, 22 years old, will take a 2-0 career head-to-head record against the veteran Wozniacki, who is 27 years old.
On Saturday it was the Ukrainian, Svitolina, who first took to the court to finish her match against No. 4 Garbine Muguruza that was halted due to rain from the previous day with the Spaniard up a set. Svitolina came out determined as the match continued and sent the Wimbledon champion packing with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory.
Next-up was the former World No. 1 Wozniacki against American Sloane Stephens who just recently returned to the WTA Tour after an 11 month layoff due to a foot injury she sustained last summer. Stephens lost in the first round of her first two tournaments back this summer but caught fire this week in Toronto defeating - among others - No. 14 Petra Kvitova and No. 3 Angie Kerber coming into the semi-final match against Wozniacki. Her magic ran-out however against Wozniacki, who took the match easily in straight sets 6-2, 6-3 to advance to her sixth final of 2017.
For someone who was winless in her five previous Rogers Cup's in Toronto, Wozniacki admitted she was playing more freely this year with expectations low. "Maybe that's also the key why it's been going so well," she told me after the match, "because I just walked in and I was more relaxed about the whole thing."
On the Grandstand Court meanwhile No. 2 Simona Halep used the heavily Romanian crowd to her advantage and dispatched of Caroline Garcia 6-4, 6-2 to set-up a second match of the day for both her and Svitolina. Halep was bringing a 2-1 advantage in their previous encounters into the match and had the easier quarter-final as well. The Romanian also held perhaps a mental edge having a huge come-from-behind win over Svitolina back in June at the French Open.
Their semi-final match took the court just after 6pm and a mere 56 minutes later it was surprisingly over, a decisive 6-1, 6-1 win for the young Svitolina. It was sweet redemption for Svitolina after seeing her 5-1 second set lead in the French Open quarter-finals erased by Halep two months ago.
As Svitolina super-fan Céleste Pagniello put it to me after the match in Toronto, "Elina's heartbreaking loss to Halep in Paris was easily her lowest moment in a season filled with so many highs. To see her get her revenge, and so convincingly is special beyond compare."
For a baffled Halep, all that she could offer to reporters after the match was, "Well, I really don't know. So if you can analyze this match, I would be happy to listen."
Svitolina meanwhile referenced the learning experience from Paris in her post-match press conference. "From the first point today till the last point, I was very focused and I was just 100% on every ball. I learned from that experience that, you know, you need to play until the last point...just one point at a time."
On paper the final has loads of potential, but as we witnessed in the Halep/Svitolina match anything is possible. Will the veteran Wozniacki be able to win her first title of the season after five previously futile attempts? Or will the ever-improving Svitolina be able to defeat her fourth top-ten opponent of the week and capture her 5th title of 2017?
Svitolina has won both of their previous career meetings. She took the first one in the round of 32 in Miami last year 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(1) and the second in more routine fashion in the finals of Dubai earlier this year 6-4, 6-2. It will be key for Wozniacki to take the first set to give herself a boost of confidence as she has been beaten in straight sets in each of the finals she has contested this year. The Dane will likely have the crowd behind her as was the case in all of her matches this week. Tennis fans are more familiar with Wozniacki but are quickly learning that Svitolina is one to watch for now and undoubtedly for the foreseable future.
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