Victoria Azarenka was the first player to make it through to the women’s quarter finals at this year’s Australian Open, and she did so in some style.
Her match against Iveta Benisova was over in two sets, the Belarusian winning easily 6-2, 6-2. The next opponent she faces will be Radwanska, who will present a tougher challenge, and Azarenka would do well to continue her record of not dropping a set in the tournament so far.
The match against the Czech Benisova took just 78 minutes as Azarenka swiftly took control and continued her dominance into the second set. The third seed made the most of her service games, winning 83% of points on her first serve, and a solid 63% on her second, and then secured four of ten break points, to give her an easy victory.
The quarterfinals will see Azarenka take on the number 8 seed Agnieszka Radwanska, who thrashed Goerges 6-1,6-1 in the last round. This should prove to be a competitive affair with both players on form, and when they met recently at Sydney, the game went to the third set before Azarenka scraped through to victory. Radwanska will also be aware that head to head, she is at a disadvantage, with just 3 wins to the Belarusian’s 6.
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Victoria Azarenka, currently ranked no. 3 in the world, gave some brilliant performances in the recently concluded Sydney International to win the tournament.
Azarenka started the game poorly, handing an advantage to the Frenchwoman. The scores stood at 2-5 for the first set, when Azarenka started her comeback. She won five consecutive games, breaking Marion Bartoli’s serve twice, to finish the set at 7-5. Bartoli was frustrated, and it was evident during the break when she repeatedly struck her racquet against the bag.
However, it looked like Bartoli had moved past her emotional outburst by the start of the second game. She started the game quite strongly, but was evenly matched by Azarenka. After a small interruption in the game due to a power outage, the match resumed and Azarenka broke the Frenchwoman’s serve.
The set stood at 3-3 when Bartoli broke Azarenka’s serve through some very aggressive shots. Soon after, Azarenka regained her momentum and the set reached 5-4 with Azarenka serving for the match. Bartoli proved to be no match for the Belarusian as she thundered her way past with a straight set victory 7-5, 6-4.
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Belarusian tennis sensation Victoria Azarenka will play world number one women’s tennis player Caroline Wozniacki in the Rogers Cup in Montreal, Canada when the tournament returns to the city after a gap of a year. This will be the first time that the 22 year old Azarenka will play in the tournament whereas her opponent is a veteran in the competition, having won the trophy the last time the event was held in Montreal. Although the Danish world number one Wozniacki did not have the best of seasons in terms of Grand Slam success this year, she will start as the favorite against the Belarusian.
The 22 year old Victoria Azarenka is yet to win a single Grand Slam title in her career but according to many experts of tennis, her game resembles that of legendary Czech tennis player Martina Navratilova and she has been marked as one of those players who will come to dominate the women’s game for years to come. Currently ranked number 3 in the world, Azarenka breezed through to the finals of the WTA Championships after reaching the semi-final stages of Wimbledon in 2011.
Alongside Azarenka and Wozniacki, Marion Bartoli and Vera Zvonareva will also play in the competition but it is being assumed that the biggest rivalry that will come out of this tournament will be that between Azarenka and Wozniacki, who have played each other many times with the Dane holding the upper hand in most of those one-on-one matches. But Victoria Azarenka is not a player who can be written off by statistics and she will be the one going into the tournament with form on her side.
Whether she manages to overcome the other three players is a whole new question but it is certain that Azarenka has announced her arrival on the big stage of tennis.
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February 9, 2012 8:43 am | 
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