mardi 20 décembre 2011

Let's take a look at the WTA TOP 10 : Victoria Azarenka

She's been one of the most active player on the tour this year, the Belarus Victoria Azarenka ended the year as World number 3 at the WTA Tour Raning system.

3- Victoria Azarenka (BELARUS)
Azarenka hitting a teremendous forehand during the Miami Final that she won
against Maria Sharapova (Miami, Florida, USA)
2010 Ending-Season Ranking : N°10 (+7)
2011 in Review : Victoria Azarenka won three titles the season at Miami, Marbella and Luxembourg.
She begins the year at Sydney where she reaches the quarter-finals before losing to Kim Clijsters, the eventual Australian Open Champion. By the way, in Melbourne, she's knocked out in the 4th round by the eventual finalist, Li Na. She showed in Australia a suspicious form and that's been confirmed during the tournament in Dubai and Doha where she suffers early round exits in both tournament. At this stage, Victoria admitted that she thought about quitting tennis as she did not feel pleasure on the court anymore.
But, with Sam Sumyk's help, she goes to American Hardcourt Tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami where she shows an impressive tennis reaching the quarter-finals in Indian Wells (surrendering to Wozniacki) and most of all, winning in Miami.
This tournament is the real start of Victoria Azarenka practising a solid tennis, she won against Kim Clijsters and Vera Zvonareva in straight sets before defeating Maria Sharapova in the final (6/1 6/4). A week later, she wins in Marebella without droping a set to launch the claycourt campaign where she reaches the final in Madrid (l. to Kvitova).
Roland Garros is kind of disapointing for since she reaches the quarter-finals, losing comprehensively to Li Na, the eventual champion while she was one of the biggest favorites on the parisian clay. Azarenka reaches the semi-finals in Wimbledon losing to eventual champion Petra Kvitova in a tough three-setter 6/1 3/6 6/2. It's actually Victoria's best result in a Grand Slam.
The US Hardcourt season is a fail for Azarenka : loss in 1st round of Stanford Open to Marina Erakovic (Nr.142) and withdrawal from Cincinnati Open. She somehow managed to reach the semi-final at the Rogers Cup losing to eventual champion Serena Williams (6/3 6/3) and reached the 4th round at the US Open where she lost again to Serena Williams.
The end of the year is been quite good to Azarenka. She won at Luxembourg without dropping a single set before reaching the final of the Year Ending Championship losing again to Petra Kvitova.

What to expect for 2012 ? : First of all, staying healthy. Even though, she's been more and more consistant during this year, she had to retire so many times this year in Stuttgart, Rome, Cincinnati and Beijing. Victoria Azarenka, as a world number 3, have to be able to reach the latter stages of a Grand Slam, thus, the main goal for her will be to show off at Grand Slams and why not reaching a final and winning it, it would be the greatest achievement of her career. Tennistically talking, Victoria will have to be more decisive on her 2nd serve ball because she's way too atacked on this nowadays. We really hope, this year, she'll find a way to beat Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova to whom she lost a lot of important matches in 2011, and why not taking revenge on Li Na too. She has to stop being an outsider to become a real contender and in order to do so, to be regular at the best stages.

The best of 2011 : Victoria Azarenka d. Kim Clijsters 6/3 6/3 (Miami- Quarter-Finals)
One of her best match of her career so far, she did everything perfect to beat Kim Clijsters in Miami. She did everything right, and I'm not even an Azarenka fan !

The worst of 2011 : Flavia Pennetta d. Victoria Azarenka 6/3 6/7 6/4 (Dubai- 3rd Round)
This was the kind of match Azarenka lost, but we don't why. It's just like she was on the court but her mind were somewhere else. A bad performance from the Belarus but credit to Pennetta being so agressiver to pack this out !

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