DAVIS IS NEXT

Victoria Azarenka will lock horns with the American player Lauren Davis in the second round match of the ongoing BNP Paribas Open.

The 24 years old Belarusian international who has not been supremely fit this season had been awarded a bye in the opening round because of her world ranking. So, the match against Davis will be her first match in the competition.

Azarenka has participated in just a couple of events in 2014. The first one was the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament in which she performed quite well and made it to the title round only to get beaten by the world no. 1 Serena Williams.

Then she went into the Australian Open and looked in pretty good rhythm there as well, but, to the surprise of everybody, she lost in the final 8 round and got knocked out.

Thereafter, she got hit by foot injury which didn’t let her take part in any of the tournaments for about a month or so. There were speculations that she might not come to Indian Wells either, but, fortunately for her, that injury got healed up in time and she made her way to USA for this tournament.

Azarenka’s overall record at Indian Wells is decent, but, not overly impressive. Out of her 6 attempts, she has managed to win the trophy here only once. That’s certainly not good enough for a player of her calibre.

While talking to the reporters ahead of the match against Davis, Azarenka looked quite excited. She said, “I was not sure initially if I would be able to get fit for this tournament. I was just hoping for the best and thankfully, the recovery went well.”

Azarenka is currently at the 4^th position in the world rankings.