AZARENKA IS THROUGH

Victoria Azarenka has made her way into the title round of the ongoing Southern California Open by defeating Ana Ivanovic of Serbia. Azarenka won the match in three sets by 6-0, 4-6, 6-3.

It was not a fluent performance by the Belarusian player who is ranked 3^rd in the world at the moment. She started quite amazingly, but, after that opening set, her performance started to deteriorate. She started making a lot of unforced errors all of a sudden. However, she was able to pull things back in the decider and won the match.

Talking to the reporters in the post match interview, Azarenka said, “You don’t have easy matches all the time. Sometimes, you have to fight your way through. It was that kind of a match for me. I made some mistakes, but, I am glad that the outcome was in my favour.”

In the opening set, Azarenka went berserk. With three serve breaks on the trot, she secured a bagel to win the set with ease

But, in the proceeding set, the Belarusian player couldn’t show the same kind of intensity. Her serve was broken in the second game and she lost the first 3 games successively to get down by 0-3.

The next 3 games went with the serve and at the end of the 6^th game; Ivanovic was leading by 4-2.

Azarenka got a breakthrough in the 7^th game and then, by holding her serve in the next game, she equalized the scores.

However, the Belarusian player again dropped her serve in the 10^th game and the set went in Ivanovic’s favour.

In the decider, there were no serve breaks in the first 4 games and the scores were levelled at 2-2.

After that, Ivanovic lost the plot. She served poorly and dropped her serve twice in the next 5 games to lose the set by 3-6.

In the final match, Azarenka will take on Samantha Stosur of Australia.