For Caroline Wozniacki, as game rebounds, fame resounds

To Caroline Wozniacki, it just doesn’t make sense. She’s sitting in her plush suite at London’s Goring Hotel as hair stylist John Christopher tends to her. He is sculpting the Danish star’s golden mane for an appearance at Harrods department store, where she’ll introduce a new chocolate for Godiva, the “Caroline.”

“On a normal, day-to-day basis, I’m makeup free, hair in a bun, and I just go. I find it funny when women share makeup-free selfies on Twitter or Instagram and it’s such a huge deal,” says Wozniacki, raising an eyebrow in the mirror.

Wozniacki, 25, is a two-time U.S. Open finalist, including last year, when she was runner-up to close friend Serena Williams. On Tuesday she opens play against American Jamie Loeb.

“But for us, we’re sweating out on the court every day with no makeup on and we don’t get credit for that? C’mon, really?”

Once known as tennis’ underachieving world No. 1 (she held the top spot for 67 weeks between 2010 and 2012 but failed to win a Grand Slam title), Wozniacki has seen her 12 months leading up to this year’s Open marked by on- and off-court revitalization.

She has again entrenched herself inside the WTA top 10, become an attached-at-the-hip BFF with Williams and grown a public profile that has included courtside seats at the Final Four and a first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game this summer.

“I was pretty proud of it. It was straight over home base,” Wozniacki says of her pitch in a phone interview, and it was applauded by many online as a perfect pitch.

This, however, is the second pitch of sorts in the career of Wozniacki, who shucks the identification as Rory McIlroy’s ex-fiancée (the golfer broke off their engagement in May 2014) and this year added chocolatier Godiva and coffee maker Lavazza to her growing list of sponsors.

With no breakthrough American female tennis star (sure, Sloane Stephens has been on the cusp for years, and Madison Keys is still knocking on the door) emerging in the last decade, Wozniacki has filled that role in many ways.

She has a swanky apartment in New York’s Union Square, a condo in Miami and a residence in Monaco. She does not own property in her native Denmark.

“I love it over here,” Wozniacki says of the USA. “I feel at home. There are so many opportunities for female athletes here. I can see myself living here one day.”

On tour for more than a decade, Wozniacki is squinting down the road to see where she might end up. A post-tennis American life with kids and a career? Sounds good to her.

“I’d like to settle down here,” Wozniacki says, explaining she’d like a job as a TV host or presenter. “Once you want to start a family, you have to think about the kids — and I’m talking about years and years ahead of me. I think America is a great place to grow up. It’s a good lifestyle.”

In Harrods on a June day leading up to Wimbledon, life is good for Wozniacki. She spends more than an hour shooting advertisements, trying bites of chocolates and cookies and sips of heavy, chocolate-filled milkshakes.

“I could do this every day,” says Wozniacki, dressed immaculately in a black-and-white BCBG dress. The video crew laughs.

What Wozniacki hasn’t proved is if she can beat the best in tennis (almost) every day. She has come close but is without a major win. Her 2014 summer resurgence — she went 28-8 in the second half of the season after falling outside the top 15 — has stagnated.

In early August, she and her father, Piotr, who is her coach, argued courtside about her playing style. That has been the book on Wozniacki: If she moves forward and is aggressive, she can be dangerous, but when caught floating behind the baseline, she can lose the way she did that night, to then-60th-ranked Varvara Lepchenko.

“That’s what I love about tennis: As an individual sport you can’t hide behind teammates,” Wozniacki says. “If you have a couple of bad tournaments, everyone is talking about it. But if you win, it’s, ‘She should have won anyways.’”

While her on-court style of play oscillates, her PR game remains in high gear. At that Final Four game she was sitting alongside NFL superstar J.J. Watt, with the photos igniting relationship rumors.

“I’m not dating anyone currently, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says. “I think you can have guys that are your friends. I just do what I love to do, and I don’t really think about what other people are going to say about it.”

Her 3-hour, 26-minute New York City Marathon last fall is still a worthwhile conversation starter, but 18-time major winner Chris Evert, an ESPN commentator, thinks it might be too much. “Maybe it makes her happy to be in the top 10 and have fun,” Evert says. “I don’t know if it’s a distraction or if it’s not. It depends on the person.”

Wozniacki, according to her agent, John Tobias, has international appeal: She has sponsor deals in the USA, Europe and Asia. It all stems, Tobias says, from the U.S. market. Her appearance in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue helped, as well as trips to events such as the ESPYs and a friendship with Lindsey Vonn.

And Wozniacki loves to do it all, Tobias says. “She wants to take advantage of this part of her life. She knows it’s going to go by fast,” he says.

Back at the Goring Hotel, Wozniacki slips on black high heels, growing her 5-10 frame even taller.

“The whole summer just got me the joy back for tennis,” she says of a year ago. “In New York, the crowd was insane. Every time I went out, I felt like an American out there. Everyone was cheering. It felt like the hard work I was putting in, it was paying off. That gives you more motivation to play better.”

Walking down the hotel hallway, she’s a player between fame and the sport that brought it. She looks glamorous even with her sock tans. Those are never going away, as long as Wozniacki chases that elusive Slam.