Love Stinks, At Least For Wozniacki's Success

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Love Stinks, At Least For Wozniacki's Success

By Nick Georgandis

Photo Credit: David Cannon/Getty Images

Caroline Wozniacki - Irish Open 2012 (Golf)

(June 7, 2012) -- In Bernard Malamud's classic baseball novel The Natural -- later immortalized by Robert Redford on the silver screen, slugger Roy Hobbs is at the top of his game when he meets a woman who takes his breath away.

They begin to date and hit the social scene, and Hobb's performance suffers. He strikes out, he makes errors in the field, but he does so with a smile on his face most days, because the beautiful woman - played in the film by Kim Basinger -- is waiting for him when he leaves the stadium.

Caroline Wozniacki, you are Roy Hobbs.

It's three weeks short of a year (July 18, 2011) since the former world No. 1 announced that she was dating golfer Rory McIlroy, himself the No. 1 golfer in the world at the time, having won the US Open a month before the two went public.

Wozniacki took over the No. 1 spot in the world in October of 2010 after winning the title at Beijing. She spent 49 straight weeks at No. 1, the 15th-longest streak in WTA history, and 67 weeks total -- ninth-most in the Open Era.

She was 49-10 on July 18, 2011, with tournament victories at Dubai, Indian Wells, Charleston, Brussels and Copenhagen.

In her first tournament after the relationship went public -- the Rogers Cup in Toronto -- Wozniacki went out meekly in her first match against No. 22 Robeta Vinci in straight sets, then did the exact same thing the following week in the same round against No. 76 Christina McHale.

She won her favorite American tournament -- New Haven, by beating three players ranked between 40th and 66th and reached the semifinals of the US Open, where she was crushed by a rising Serena Williams before finishing 2011 with a meek 1-2 record in the WTA Championships, going 14-7 after the revelation of her relationship.

McIlroy shared Wozniacki's struggles, struggling at The Open Championship and the PGA Championship, winning a pair of Asian tournaments.

Into 2012, the pair began showing up at each other's tournaments, a nice show of support, but decidedly the wrong thing to do. When you start a new relationship, you don't have the other person come to your job and watch you work, particularly when your work involves a ridiculously high level of routine and concentration, a lack of which can be the difference between you earning a few thousand dollars and a few million.

By her own high standards - a 62-17 record in 2010 and a 63-17 mark in 2011 - Wozniacki has staggered out of the gates in 2012, a meager 22-13 after her first-round loss to Tamira Paszek.

She also has lost her first matches at Doha, Rome and Eastbourne this year, dropping to No. 7 in the world, rather coincidentally McIlroy's ranking as well, as his start to 2012 has not been as charming as that of 2011.