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Sharapova stunned as Azarenka cruises to victory and world No 1
Victoria Azarenka is sitting on top of the world after thrashing Maria Sharapova to win the Australian Open.
The Belarusian’s 6-3 6-0 victory, achieved in just an hour and 22 minutes, not only gave her a maiden grand slam triumph but also saw her surge to No 1 in the WTA rankings.
The sheer brilliance of her performance, and the calmness shown to see the match out, surprised many but the 22-year-feels she can get even better.
Asked whether she felt she played the perfect match, Azarenka said: “I don’t think so. Just the perfect ending.
“I didn’t think going into the match I had to play the perfect match. I just had to play better than my opponent.
“The first two games was a bit of a disaster but then I got the momentum going.
“I relaxed and started focusing on each point, trying to do whatever it took to win that point.”
Azarenka has not always shown such self-belief when closing in on a major victory and admitted her semi-final win over defending champion Kim Clijsters had helped in that regard.
She said: “It was a huge win over Kim, not only because it was a semi-final but just beating a great champion
“It really helped me a lot with the self-belief. You have to go through the tough matches to win the titles.”
That self-belief took a while to come to the surface as, with so much up for grabs, the opening exchanges were edgy and error-strewn.
Azarenka’s nerves were certainly evident early on. She was able to save one break point in the opening game but then pushed a backhand wide on the second as Sharapova made the first move.
When she slipped 0-2 0-30 down, her camp must have been fearing the worst but she dragged it back to 40-30 and then got on the scoreboard with a blistering forehand down the line.
The confidence suddenly returned to the third seed and she broke back to love to level it at 2-2 and followed that with a routine hold to edge ahead.
While Sharapova was happy to simply trade groundstrokes from the baseline, Azarenka was displaying more variety.
Having held for 4-3 with a clever drop shot-lob combination she then broke with some adventurous net play.
A drive volley gave her a second break point and she took it with another drop shot which Sharapova could only scrape up and her opponent was on hand to volley into the open court.
She had no problems in serving it out and remained on the front foot to run away with the second set.
It was a sobering day for Sharapova but she showed plenty of class in her speech during the presentation ceremony and also in the post-match press conference.
“She did everything better than me,” she said. “She was the one that was taking the first ball and hitting it deep and aggressive. I was always the one running around like a rabbit.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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