STANFORD, CALIF. — Sometimes you just need a break. And the pause between Wimbledon and the American hard-court campaign couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for Caroline Wozniacki, who confided that she’s been dealing with a bad back since Eastbourne, a stretch that includes four rounds at the All England Club.

“I needed some time off,” said the world No. 5 at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, Calif., where she’s making her first-ever appearance, a status, she says, that makes her feel like a rookie all over again. “It was really nice to kind of get away from everything.”

It wasn’t all rest and relaxation. The Dane’s break included throwing out the first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on Sunday. (She tossed a picture perfect strike, avoiding any comparisons to rapper 50 Cent, who infamously flailed at New York’s Citi Field last year.) 

In baseball, they call these the dog days of summer, the time of year when players begin to sag under the weight of the season. Not for Wozniacki. This is, after all, when she traditionally plays her best tennis. She has reached the semifinals or better four times at the US Open. Last year, she fell to her close friend Serena Williams in the final, which was her first there since 2009.

“It’s a fun part of the year for me,” said Wozniacki. “The earlier part of the season has been a little bit up-and-down. I actually feel like I’ve been playing some really good tennis, but I’ve had some tough draws.”

Those tough draws include a trio of end-of-the-line matchups against fellow former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, including a second-round loss to the Belarusian at the Australian Open. Since then, she’s claimed just one title, on hard courts in Kuala Lumpur, and has struggled with consistency. Wozniacki hopes that a strong showing in the coming weeks will get her back on track and put her in a good position to peak in New York.

Another player who is perhaps as excited for the year-end Grand Slam as Wozniacki is her pal Serena, who beginning on Aug. 31 will attempt to become the first player in 27 years to win a calendar Grand Slam. However, the Dane says she doesn’t sense any added anxiety from the American.

“She’s already broken so many records,” said Wozniacki, who plans to take a tone-it-down approach to her US Open preparation this year, limiting her lead-up events to Stanford, Toronto, and Cincinnati. “She’s a great player and a great champion. I think she’s just taking it as another tournament. She’s already won four Slams in a row and she’s doing pretty well for herself.”

Will she sit back and marvel should her friend pull it all off in New York, putting the finishing touches on the Grand Slam and equaling Hall of Famer Steffi Graf’s Open Era mark of 22 majors?

“For sure, but I’ll try to hold her off from that — at least for another tournament.”

Wozniacki, 25, joked that when it comes to health she’s getting old (“It’s not easy now when you’re a quarter of a century”), but if she does indeed want to raise that trophy on the final Sunday in Flushing Meadows this summer, she’ll need to come in as close to 100 percent as possible, bad back or not.

“The main thing is to stay healthy all the way through,” she said.

Wozniacki says that at this point in her career, in order to stay at the top of this sport, she has had to keep adding to her game, giving opponents some new looks and staying one step ahead of the competition. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s constantly reinventing herself.

“You’re not trying to change your game,” she told Tennis View Magazine. “You grow up and automatically everyone finds the game they’re comfortable with. Some people are comfortable with running side to side, some people are not comfortable running at all and have to take the ball earlier and hit the ball hard. It just comes naturally from a very young age. You can really see what the player is good at. You just add to your game. For me, I go from offense to defense, defense to offense. I’m fine with running down balls. But I also add to my game. I can step it up if I have to. You just try to get better at the things you maybe aren’t as good at. It’s not that all of a sudden I have to hit winners from 10 feet behind the court. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about always trying to improve.”