Christina McHale Upsets World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in Western & Southern Open Second Round

Written by: Staff on 18th August 2011

Christina McHale Upsets World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in Western & Southern Open Second Round

US tennis player Christina McHale returns the ball to Italian tennis player Francesca Schiavone in their first round match at the Italian Open Tennis Tournament (Masters series), in the Central Stadium at the Foro Italico in Rome, Italy, 10 May 2010. EPA/CLAUDIO ONORATI |

Christina McHale, a 19-year-old from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., recorded the biggest win of her career on Wednesday, upsetting world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 7-5, in the second round of the Western & Southern Open, an Olympus US Open Series event in Cincinnati.

The victory is McHale’s first versus a player ranked in the WTA Top 5 and just her second against a player ranked in the Top 10 (she beat then-No. 9 Victoria Azarenka via a retirement in Charleston, S.C., in 2010). With the win, McHale becomes the first American woman to beat a world No. 1 since Venus Williams beat Dinara Safina in the 2009 Wimbledon semifinals.

The 2009 USTA Girls’ 18s National Champion is currently No. 76 in the WTA rankings and is the youngest player ranked in the top 100. She trains at the USTA Training Center-East at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. and was one the first players to train full-time at the USTA Player Development Headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., as part of the residency program for the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.