Azarenka and Troicki, both seize titles in Russia
This Sunday, Belarusian WTA player Victoria Azarenka scored a win over her opponent, proceeding to grab victories at the 2010 Kremlin Cup, held yearly in Moscow, Russia. On the same day, Serb Viktor Troicki managed a three-set upset over his opponent, Marcos
Baghadatis of Cyprus, to win his first ATP title.
The event’s WTA second seed, Azarenka, scored a victory over Russian tennis player Maria Kirilenko, who is also her doubles partner, with a score line of 6-3, 6-4, grabbing her fifth career title with the win. The pro pair exchanged a number of breaks in
the beginning of the first set, and Azarenka then managed to break her opponent thrice in rapid succession to take away the first set. This is the first set that Kirilenko has been forced to give away in the whole week.
However, in the second set, the Belarusian player seemed to falter, and initiated the 10th game disastrously. World Number 24 Kirilenko, who has reached this hometown final after six attempts, finally took a 4-0 lead. However, Azarenka – who is
currently World Number 10 on the WTA ranking list – managed to save three break points in the seventh game and three in the ninth game, to take away six games in a row, winning the match. She destroyed Kirilenko, who saved two break points at this time in
the match, with a forehand net volley.
She says of the match, “It was really tough to win the second set as Maria started pretty good, dominating the play completely. I tried hard to stay in the match, fighting for every point, and it paid off ... I’m really happy to win here on my third attempt.”
This victory comes Azarenka took down her quarter final opponent to qualify for the end of year WTA Tour event at Doha, an exclusive event only featuring 8 top class players. When asked about how she felt over her multiple successes at the tournament, the
21 year old pro tennis player said to reporters, “This is a really big victory for me. Winning a tournament gives you great confidence but it was especially important to do it here ahead of Doha."
Although her opponent failed to beat her during the final, the World Number 24 will climb back to the World’s Top 20 players when the WTA releases new rankings at the beginning of the week. Says Kirilenko of her loss, “It was a good week for me, I just lost
to a better player today.”
On the Association of Tennis Professionals section of the tour, the unseeded Serbian tennis professional Viktor Troicki managed to upset the event’s fourth seed, Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, in a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 final which bagged Troicki his first ATP title.
The 24 year old looked to be in much better form in the last two sets and scored his first victory in two matches against Baghdatis, who debuted at Moscow this week, after nearly two hours. The World Number 43 told reporters, “This is just unbelievable for
me. It’s my first win and it was especially great to achieve it here in Moscow as my father is half-Russian.”
Although the victory itself was monumental for Troicki, he did not have much time to savour it, since he was also competing in the doubles final with fellow Serbian Janko Tipsarevic. Troicki-Tipsarevic were set up to play Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov.
Troicki lost his last two finals, and his success at the Kremlin Cup required him to exercise his full potential. Although the match seemed like it would go to Baghdatis, Troicki pulled his game together in the second round and made it to his maiden title
with a forehand winner.
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