- published: 09 Jan 2013
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- author: SlovakSportTV
Sport (or, in the United States, sports) is all forms of competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.
Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports, although limits the amount of mind games which can be admitted as sports.
Sports are usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can by determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first, or by the determination of judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
In organised sport, records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. In addition, sport is a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sports drawing large crowds to venues, and reaching wider audiences through sports broadcasting.
|Look up sport in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
The French word for sport is based on the Persian word bord, meaning "winning" or "win". The Chinese term for sport, tiyu (体育; 體育) connotes physical training. The modern Greek term for sport is Αθλητισμός (athlitismos), directly cognate with the English terms "athlete" and "athleticism".
Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise. Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.
The singular term 'sport' is used in most English dialects to decribe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with 'sports' used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses 'sports' for both terms.
The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources, with no universally agreed definition. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, american football, cycling, equestrian sports, baseball and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:
They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports) or primarily animal supported (such as equestrian sport).
There has been an increase in the application of the term 'sport' to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as electronic sports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations.
There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sport involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the IOC or SportAccord.
Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those completed just for fun.
In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.
There are artifacts and structures that suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting activities as early as 2000 BC. Gymnastics appears to have been a popular sport in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to the warfare skills. Among other sports that originate in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sports in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sports became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.
Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought increased leisure time to the citizens of developed and developing countries, leading to more time for citizens to attend and follow spectator sports, greater participation in athletic activities, and increased accessibility. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans began following the exploits of professional athletes through radio, television, and the internet—all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports.
Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's “not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
Key tenets of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure that fair play to occur, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
Participants may choose to cheat in order to satisfy their desire to win, or in order to achieve an ulterior motive. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports fixtures creates the motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome.
The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism are common and ongoing problems at national and international sporting contests.
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Female participation continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95. Hessel (2000)[Full citation needed].
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Youth sports present children with opportunities for fun, socialization, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sports as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sports is death or serious injury including concussion, with the highest risk coming from running, basketball, football, volleyball, soccer, and gymnastics.
The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.
Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast mediums including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast.
It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2007 Cricket World Cup attracted about 2.3 Billion worldwide viewers.
In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year. Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America; the viewership being so great that in 2007 advertising space was reported as being sold at $2.6m for a 30 second slot.
The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run in to millions of dollars.
Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practiced a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practiced it merely as a hobby., but following the 1988 games, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes elgible for the Olympics, with only boxing and wrestling still competed on an "amateur" basis, although this revolves around rules, and not payment.
Grassroots sport is a popular phrase which covers the amateur participation in sport at lower levels, normally without pretension towards higher achievement, and is in line with the "sport for all" mentality, where enjoyment is the primary reason for participation.
Technology plays an important part in modern sport, with it being a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), and used in others to improve performance.
Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear.
In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules designed to control the impact of technical advantage between participants.
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Sports and politics can influence each other greatly.
When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.
In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid 20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sports, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sports being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
A very famous case when sports and politics colided was the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
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Wozniacki at the 2009 US Open
|Residence||Monte Carlo, Monaco|
|Born||(1990-07-11) 11 July 1990 (age 21)
|Height||1.77 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in)|
|Weight||58 kg (128 lb; 9 st 2 lb)|
|Turned pro||18 July 2005|
|Plays||Right-handed (two-handed backhand)|
|Career prize money||$ 12,444,751|
|Official web site||www.carolinewozniacki.dk|
|Career titles||18 WTA, 4 ITF|
|Highest ranking||No. 1 (11 October 2010)|
|Current ranking||No. 9 (28 May 2012)|
|Grand Slam Singles results|
|Australian Open||SF (2011)|
|French Open||QF (2010)|
|Wimbledon||4R (2009, 2010, 2011)|
|US Open||F (2009)|
|Olympic Games||3R (2008)|
|Career titles||2 WTA, 0 ITF|
|Highest ranking||No. 52 (14 September 2009)|
|Grand Slam Doubles results|
|Australian Open||2R (2008)|
|French Open||2R (2010)|
|Wimbledon||2R (2009, 2010)|
|US Open||3R (2009)|
|Last updated on: 28 May 2012.|
Caroline Wozniacki (born 11 July 1990) is a Danish professional tennis player. She is a former world no. 1 on the WTA Tour. As of 23 January 2012, she held this position for 67 weeks. She is the first Scandinavian woman to hold the top ranking position and 20th overall.
Since her WTA debut in 2005, she has improved her year-end ranking each year until finishing on top in both 2010 and 2011. She has won 18 WTA singles titles as of August 2011, three in 2008, three in 2009, six in 2010 (the most since Justine Henin's ten in 2007), and six in 2011. She was runner-up at the 2009 US Open and the 2010 WTA Tour Championships in Doha to Kim Clijsters. She won the 2006 Wimbledon Girls' Singles title but has yet to win a women's Grand Slam title. She also holds two WTA titles in doubles.
Wozniacki is the daughter of Polish Roman Catholic immigrants, Piotr and Anna Wozniacki. Anna played on the Polish women's national volleyball team, and Piotr played professional football. The couple moved to Denmark when Piotr signed for the Danish football club Boldklubben 1909. Wozniacki's older brother Patrik Wozniacki is a professional footballer for Hvidovre IF in Denmark.
Wozniacki's playing style centers "around the defensive aspects of tennis with her anticipation, movement, agility, footwork and defence all first-rate and key parts of her game." Her two-handed backhand is one of her best weapons as she is capable of turning defense into offense, most notably the backhand down-the-line. Her defensive playing style has her contemporaries label her a counter-puncher.
In 2009, Wozniacki signed on to become an endorser for the line of tennis apparel designed by Stella McCartney for adidas. She wore her first adidas by Stella McCartney tennis dress at the 2009 US Open. She also has sponsorship agreements with Compeed, Danske Invest, Oriflame, Turkish Airlines, Proactiv, Sony Ericsson, Yonex and e-Boks.
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Wozniacki won several junior tournaments in 2005, including the Orange Bowl tennis championship. She made her debut on the WTA Tour at Cincinnati's Western & Southern Financial Group Women's Open on 19 July 2005, losing to the top-seeded and eventual champion Patty Schnyder in the first round. In the Nordea Nordic Light Open, her other WTA tournament of the year, she lost to Martina Suchá in the first round.
In 2006, she was the top seed at the Australian Open (junior girls' singles), but lost the final to eighth-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia. She was seeded second with partner Anna Tatishvili in the doubles tournament, but the pair was knocked out in the semifinals by the French-Italian pair of Alizé Cornet and Corinna Dentoni, who were seeded eighth.
Later that year, she was given a wild card to the qualifying draw at Wimbledon, where she was beaten in the first round by Miho Saeki. However, Wozniacki went on to win the girls' singles tournament, beating Slovak Magdaléna Rybáriková in the finals.
In August, she reached another WTA Tour quarterfinal, this time at the Nordea Nordic Light Open in Stockholm. She defeated top-100 players Iveta Benešová and Eleni Daniilidou, before falling to eventual champion and third-seeded Zheng Jie.
Wozniacki was seeded second in Girls' Singles in the year's last major tournament. In the first round, she won the first set against Russian Alexandra Panova, but was disqualified in the second set for verbally abusing an umpire. Wozniacki was said to have used an expletive in referring to a linesman who made a disputed call. However, on her blog, she claimed to have said, "take your sunglasses of [sic]" and was mistaken for talking to the linesman, when she in fact was criticizing herself after the next point.
Wozniacki was set to face Venus Williams on 27 November in an exhibition match in Copenhagen, but five days before the event, Williams canceled because of an injury. The two did, however, face each other in the Memphis WTA Tier III event on 20 February. Williams beat Wozniacki, ending a nine-match winning streak for Wozniacki.
On 4 February, she won a $75,000 ITF singles title in Ortisei, Italy, beating Italian Alberta Brianti. On 4 March, she won the $75,000 ITF tournament in Las Vegas, beating top-seed Akiko Morigami in the final.
She then made the semifinals of the AIG Open in Tokyo in October, her first career WTA Tour semifinal, and as a result became the first Danish woman to reach a WTA semifinal since Tine Scheuer-Larsen at Bregenz in 1986. She was defeated by Venus Williams in straight sets.
At the French Open, she was seeded 30th, making this the first Grand Slam tournament in which Wozniacki was seeded. She again lost in the third round to the eventual champion and world no. 2 Ana Ivanović.
Wozniacki won her first WTA Tour title at the Nordic Light Open in Stockholm without dropping a set, defeating fifth seed Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals, top seed and world no. 10, Agnieszka Radwańska in the semifinals, and Vera Dushevina in the final.
At the Summer Olympics in Beijing, she beat world no. 12 Daniela Hantuchová in the second round, before falling to the eventual gold-medalist Elena Dementieva. Wozniacki then won her second WTA Tour title at the Pilot Pen Tennis in New Haven, defeating four seeded players, Dominika Cibulková, Marion Bartoli, and Alizé Cornet, en route to the final, where she defeated world no. 11 Anna Chakvetadze.
At the China Open, she lost her opening match to Anabel Medina Garrigues. However, she teamed up with Medina Garrigues to clinch the doubles title, defeating the Chinese duo of Han Xinyun and Xu Yi-Fan. It was Wozniacki's first WTA doubles title. At the Tier III AIG Japan Open Tennis Championships, she was the top seed for the first time on the WTA Tour, and she won her third career title, defeating Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in the final.
Her final win–loss record for the year (ITF matches included, exhibition matches not included) was 58–20 in singles and 8–9 in doubles. She ended the year ranked 12th in singles and 79th in doubles. She finished thirteenth in the race for the Sony Ericsson Championships. She also won the WTA Newcomer of the Year award for 2008.
Wozniacki started the season in Auckland, where she lost to Elena Vesnina in the quarterfinals. She also reached the quarterfinals in Sydney, this time losing to world no. 2 Serena Williams after having three match points. Seeded 11th at the Australian Open, Wozniacki lost in the third round to Australian wild card Jelena Dokić.
In Pattaya, Wozniacki lost to Magdaléna Rybáriková in the quarterfinals. Seeded first at the Cellular South Cup in Memphis, Tennessee, Wozniacki advanced to the final, but lost to Victoria Azarenka. Afterwards, they partnered in the doubles final to defeat Michaëlla Krajicek and Yuliana Fedak.
Wozniacki then took part in the first two Premier Mandatory tournaments of the year. At Indian Wells, she lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Vera Zvonareva. In Miami, she scored her first win over Elena Dementieva, before losing to another Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals.
Wozniacki won her first title of the year at the MPS Group Championships on green clay in Ponte Vedra Beach, where she defeated Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak. In Charleston, she defeated top seed Elena Dementieva in the semifinals, before losing the final to Sabine Lisicki.
Wozniacki suffered early exits in her next two tournaments, losing to Marion Bartoli in the second round in Stuttgart, and to Victoria Azarenka in the third round in Rome. She reached the final of the inaugural Premier Mandatory Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open, where she lost to world no. 1 Dinara Safina. This was Wozniacki's only match against a reigning no. 1 before she herself became no. 1 in October 2010. Seeded 10th at the French Open, Wozniacki lost to Sorana Cîrstea in the third round. They partnered in doubles, but lost in the first round.
Wozniacki won her second 2009 title on the grass of Eastbourne. In the final, she defeated Virginie Razzano. Wozniacki was seeded ninth at Wimbledon, where she lost to Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round.
On her 19th birthday, she lost the final of the Swedish Open to María José Martínez Sánchez. On hard court at the LA Women's Tennis Championships, she lost in the second round to Sorana Cîrstea. At the Cincinnati Masters, she reached the quarterfinals, before falling to Elena Dementieva. In Toronto, she lost early in the second round to Zheng Jie, but she then went on to defend her title at the Pilot Pen Tennis in New Haven without losing a set. In the first round, she had her first double bagel win as a professional, 6–0, 6–0, over Edina Gallovits in 41 minutes. In the final, she beat Elena Vesnina for her third title of the season.
Wozniacki was the ninth seed at the US Open. She made her best result to date by becoming the first Danish woman to reach a Grand Slam final. There, she was defeated by Kim Clijsters, who had recently made a comeback after retiring in 2007.
In the second round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open, she retired because of a viral illness down 0–5 against Aleksandra Wozniak. She then lost to María José Martínez Sánchez in the first round of the China Open, and to Samantha Stosur in the semifinals in Osaka. The following week in Luxembourg, she retired with a hamstring injury in the first round, while leading 7–5, 5–0 over Anne Kremer. This aroused controversy because of the scoreline.
Wozniacki's 2009 results qualified her for the year-end Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha for the first time. She won two of three group matches and advanced to the semifinals. There she struggled with a stomach strain and a left thigh injury against world no. 1 Serena Williams, and retired while trailing 6–4, 0–1.
In her first WTA tournament of the year, Wozniacki suffered an opening-round loss to Li Na of China in the Sydney. She was seeded fourth at the Australian Open, her first top-eight seed in a Grand Slam. She again fell to Li, this time in the fourth round, in straight sets. Despite her fourth-round exit, Wozniacki achieved a career-high ranking of no. 3.
As the second seed at Indian Wells, Wozniacki reached the final before losing to former world no. 1 Jelena Janković. With this result, she achieved a new career-high ranking of world no. 2. At the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Wozniacki lost in the quarterfinals to the newly returned Justine Henin.
Her next tournament was in Ponte Vedra Beach, where she defeated Olga Govortsova in the final. Wozniacki then competed at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston. She advanced to the semifinals, where she met Vera Zvonareva. Wozniacki was forced to retire down 2–5, after she rolled her ankle while chasing down a short ball.
Despite her ongoing ankle injury, she continued to compete in tournaments through the clay-court season, suffering early losses in Stuttgart, Rome, and Madrid. She then reached the quarterfinals in Warsaw, but retired there after losing the first set.
Wozniacki was seeded third at the French Open. She posted her best result at Roland Garros by advancing to the fourth round without dropping a set. After defeating Flavia Pennetta in the round of 16 in three sets, she lost to eventual champion Francesca Schiavone in the quarterfinals. Wozniacki partnered with Daniela Hantuchová in doubles, but they withdrew before their second round match against the Williams sisters because of a right shoulder injury to Hantuchová.
As the defending champion, Wozniacki lost early at the AEGON International, her first grass-court tournament of the year, to Aravane Rezaï. Wozniacki was seeded third at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, where she defeated Tathiana Garbin, Chang Kai-chen, and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova en route to the fourth round, where she was defeated by Petra Kvitová.
Wozniacki was the first seed at the inaugural 2010 e-Boks Danish Open. It was the first Danish WTA tournament, created largely out of Wozniacki's popularity in Denmark. She reached the final, and she defeated Klára Zakopalová to win her second title of the year.
In Cincinnati, she lost in the third round to Marion Bartoli. As the second seed in Montreal, Wozniacki was forced to wait two days to play her semifinal match with Svetlana Kuznetsova because of heavy rain. She defeated both Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva on the same day for her third singles title of the year. As the top seed in New Haven, Wozniacki defeated Nadia Petrova in the final for her third consecutive title there. By virtue of this, she also won the 2010 US Open Series.
Wozniacki was the top seed at the US Open due to the withdrawal of world no. 1 Serena Williams. She advanced to the semifinals, before being upset by Vera Zvonareva. With her semifinal appearance, Wozniacki became one of only two women (the other being Venus Williams) to have reached at least the fourth round of all four Grand Slam events in 2010.
Wozniacki's first tournament during the Asian hard-court season was the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. She won back-to-back three setters against Victoria Azarenka and Elena Dementieva, the latter of whom she beat in the final to win her fifth title of the year.
She then entered the China Open in Beijing. In the third round, Wozniacki faced Petra Kvitová, who had routed her at Wimbledon. Wozniacki avenged that loss, which ensured that she would replace Serena Williams as the new world no. 1 after the tournament. She was the fifth player to reach the no. 1 position without having won a Grand Slam tournament. She also became the first Danish player, man or woman, to reach the top ranking. Wozniacki ultimately won the tournament, defeating Vera Zvonareva in the final to win her sixth title of the year and twelfth overall.
At the year-end Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Wozniacki was drawn in a group with Francesca Schiavone, Samantha Stosur, and Elena Dementieva. She defeated Dementieva in her first round-robin game, but lost to Stosur in the second. She won her last round-robin match in the group against Schiavone, securing the year-end world no. 1 rank and a place in the semifinals against the winner of the other group, Vera Zvonareva. Wozniacki defeated her, but then lost the final in three sets to Kim Clijsters. Wozniacki ended the season with six WTA singles titles, the most on the tour. Clijsters won five, and no other player won more than two.
During the off season, Wozniacki switched her racquet make from Babolat to Yonex. Wozniacki began her 2011 season with an exhibition match in Thailand against Kim Clijsters where she lost in a super tie-break. Wozniacki then played another exhibition, the team Hong Kong Tennis Classic, where she represented and was captain of Team Europe. She won two matches against Team Asia Pacific, before getting crushed by world no. 2 Vera Zvonareva in the final against Team Russia. Her first WTA tournament was the Medibank International Sydney. She received a bye to the second round, where she lost to Dominika Cibulková.
The Australian Open was Wozniacki's first major as world no. 1. She lost to Li Na in the semifinals after failing to convert a match point when trying to serve out the match at 5–4 in the second set.
Wozniacki dropped to no. 2 behind Kim Clijsters during the week of 14 February, but regained the top spot the following week. She received a bye to the second round in Dubai where, in the quarterfinals, she beat Shahar Pe'er to ensure her no. 1 position in the next rankings update. She went on to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final to take her 13th career singles title and first of the year.
After a first-round bye at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida, Wozniacki lost in the fourth round to 21st seed Andrea Petkovic. Wozniacki made an uncharacteristic 52 unforced errors and later cited exhaustion as a factor in the loss.
At the Brussels Open, Wozniacki reached the semifinals, where she defeated third seed and reigning French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone. In the final, Wozniacki's sixth of the year, she defeated eighth seed Peng Shuai to win her first red clay title, after having won three on the faster green clay.
Wozniacki's next tournament was the e-Boks Sony Ericsson Open in her native Denmark. In the final, she defeated fourth seed Lucie Šafářová, taking her fifth title of the year. At Wimbledon, she had straight-set wins until the fourth round, but then lost to 24th seed Dominika Cibulková.
At the Rogers Cup Wozniacki made an early second-round exit. She was defeated by Roberta Vinci in straight sets despite holding a 5–1 lead in the second set. Wozniacki was the top seed at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, but lost in the second round to world no. 76 Christina McHale. Next playing at the New Haven Open at Yale, Wozniacki won the title for the fourth year in a row, defeating Francesca Schiavone in the semifinals and qualifier Petra Cetkovská in the final.
At the US Open, Wozniacki was the first seed. In the first round, she defeated Nuria Llagostera Vives. In the second round, Wozniacki defeated Arantxa Rus, and in the third round, defeated American Vania King. In the fourth round, Wozniacki fought back from a 7–6, 4–1 deficit, defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova. Wozniacki then progressed to the semifinals by defeating Andrea Petkovic in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals she lost to Serena Williams.
Wozniacki was the top seed at the WTA Championships. In the group stage she beat Agnieszka Radwańska before falling to Vera Zvonareva. She lost also to Petra Kvitová in her final round-robin match and so she failed to advance to semifinals for the first time in three appearances. After the withdrawal of Maria Sharapova, Wozniacki was certain to finish the year as world no. 1 for the second consecutive year.
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Wozniacki began her season by representing Denmark at the 2012 Hopman Cup with Frederik Nielsen as her partner. Wozniacki won two of her three round robin matches in singles, defeating Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Tsvetana Pironkova before losing to the World No. 2 Petra Kvitová in three sets.
Wozniacki's next event was the 2012 Apia International Sydney. After a first round bye, Wozniacki defeated Dominika Cibulková (whom she had lost to in the same round of the event last year) in three sets after trailing 4–0 in the final set. She lost to World No. 8 Agnieszka Radwańska in three sets in the quarterfinals, after serving for the match at 5–4 up in the second set.
Wozniacki competed at the 2012 Australian Open as the top seed. Wozniacki defeated Anastasia Rodionova, Anna Tatishvili, Monica Niculescu and Jelena Janković all in straight sets to reach the quarterfinals where she lost to former World No. 1 Kim Clijsters. As a result Wozniacki lost her top ranking and was replaced by Victoria Azarenka. Next playing at Doha, Wozniacki lost to Lucie Safarova in the second round, having received a first round bye.
Wozniacki was the defending champion in Dubai and Indian Wells but failed to defend either title, losing to Julia Georges and Ana Ivanovic respectively. Following her loss at Indian Wells, Wozniacki fell out of the Top 5 for the first time since 2009.
Wozniacki was seeded fourth in Miami, and reached the semifinals by beating Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, Petra Cetkovska, Yanina Wickmayer and Serena Williams, all in straight sets. Wozniacki was then beaten by second seed Maria Sharapova, 4–6, 6–2, 6–4. Wozniacki did not defend her title in Charleston as she was not allowed to participate under WTA rules because two Top-6 players had already entered the draw. Wozniacki then played at the tournament in her home town of Copenhagen. She defeated Urszula Radwanska, Pauline Parmentier, Alize Cornet, and Petra Martic. She lost her first match at the tournament losing to Angelique Kerber in the final 6–4 6–4.
Wozniacki's best friend is her fellow Danish tennis player Malou Ejdesgaard, who has been her doubles partner in five tournaments. They are trying to gain entry to the 2012 Summer Olympics in doubles.
|Runner-up||2009||US Open||Hard||Kim Clijsters||7–5, 6–3|
|Grand Slam Tournaments|
|Australian Open||A||A||A||4R||3R||4R||SF||QF||0 / 5||17–5|
|French Open||A||A||1R||3R||3R||QF||3R||0 / 5||10–5|
|Wimbledon||A||LQ||2R||3R||4R||4R||4R||0 / 5||12–5|
|US Open||A||A||2R||4R||F||SF||SF||0 / 5||20–5|
|Win–Loss||0–0||0–0||2–3||10–4||13–4||15–4||15–4||4–1||0 / 20||59–20|
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Caroline Wozniacki|
|Short description||Danish tennis player|
|Date of birth||11 July 1990|
|Place of birth||Odense, Denmark|
|Date of death|
|Place of death|