What Caroline Wozniacki Loss to Angelique Kerber Means for Australian Open 2017

Caroline Wozniacki's quest for a first Grand Slam title remains unfinished, as she was eliminated by Angelique Kerber 6-4, 6-3, in the semifinals of the U.S. Open on Thursday. 

Wozniacki, 26, has had a difficult 2016. She was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open and Wimbledon, missed the French Open and several other tournaments due to injury, has yet to claim a title this season and dropped out in the second round at the Rio Olympics.

In fact, after registering 12 titles on the WTA Tour between the 2010-11 seasons, Wozniacki has just five titles in the past five seasons. Her last title came at the BMW Malaysian Open in March 2015.

Suffice it to say, Wozniacki wasn't among the favorites coming into the U.S. Open, so her loss doesn't exactly send tremors through the tennis world. 

That said, she played her best tennis of the year in Queens, New York. 

Before she was bounced in straight sets by the new world No. 1, Wozniacki won four of her first five matches in straight sets—including showdowns with the ninth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova and eighth-seeded Madison Keys. 

For the 74th-ranked player in the world, that's a bounce-back performance Wozniacki can be proud of. 

But now that her resurgent run at the year's final Grand Slam has been cut short, she'll set her sights on the first major of 2017. 

However, recent history doesn't paint Wozniacki's chances of a title in a particularly positive light. 

She's reached the semifinals in Melbourne just once (2011), but she will take a full-fledged breakthrough where she can get it. 

Still, at the moment, Wozniacki simply doesn't feel like a threat to win a Grand Slam. She may make a run, but if she does, she'll be doing so as a relative underdog. 

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