Victoria Crushes Maria In Finals
Victoria Crushes Maria In Finals
On Sunday, two gorgeous six foot women pounded the ball at each other for about an hour and a half in one of the loudest matches ever played. When the last grunt, groan and sigh were heard, Victoria Azarenka had claimed her first title of the year and once again positioned herself as a top ten player.
Runner-up Maria Sharapova failed in her bid to become the first tour player to win three championships this year but she showed plenty of heart and plenty of power. In the end, it was Maria’s inconsistent serve that opened the door for Victoria in the 6-4, 6-1 triumph.
The win snapped Sharapova’s two match win streak against Victoria and marked a nice turnaround by the emotional star. Beginning in March, Victoria seemed unhappy with the sport, with her game and her lifestyle. She began to lose matches she never should have lost. As a result, she plummeted in the rankings, falling out the top twenty at one point.
Her confidence was shaken and she could not finish off lesser opponents. Meanwhile, Sharapova was working hard to get back in competitive shape. Ever since her shoulder injury in 2008, Maria has become fair game for the game’s up and coming stars.
With wins in Memphis and Strasbourg and a solid performance against Serena Williams at Wimbledon, Maria is on the road back and should break into the top five soon. However, she will need to repair that serve to win another major.
The Bank of the West Classic is a good win for Azarenka. To reach the finals she had to come back from a set down and 1-3 against last year’s winner, Marion Bartoli. Following that emotional quarterfinal win, the Russian knocked off top seed Samantha Stosur in a convincing 6-2, 6-3 win.
Azarenka showed that she has control of her temperament, which has often been her biggest enemy, and although her serve also needs work, her ground strokes are sharp and well suited for the remaining five weeks of the U.S. Open series.
It seems we will be hearing more from the 21-year old Queen for a Day.
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Craig August 3, 2010 at 8:54 pm
If you’d seen much of Vika this season it’s pretty obvious her ‘slump’ was injury related, she’s suffered with numerous injuries and had been forced to play to honour her commitment tournaments when she hadn’t fully recovered to avoid being fined and getting stuck with ‘0 pointers’ on her ranking. This is the first time she’s been completely injury-free since Miami and she even said this herself in an interview this past week.
It’s great to see her back in form and with a title though after she was playing great tennis at Eastbourne and then fell in the final where she could hardly move freely at all. In my opinion she’s easily got the most potential out of the young players on the tour with her style of game to win the big events. Let’s hope she remains injury free for the rest of the season now and can build on this excellent start to the US open series.