Samantha Stosur vs Victoria Azarenka – Match Preview: TEB
BNP Paribas WTA Championships 2011
The second round robin matches of the year-end Championships are set to begin on Wednesday the 26th of October 2011. Eight of the top professionals in the world divided into two groups of four are competing for the coveted
year end title in Istanbul this week.
Continuing play on Day 2, the two white group contestants to confront each other are the current US Open Champion Samantha Stosur and Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, who was also seeded as number four. The two have competed four
times against each other preceding this event; in their head-to-head run Azarenka leads with four victories to Stosur’s none.
Both the players met for their initial match in 2005 at New Haven during the second round. Even though, Azarenka was a qualifier at the event she managed to oust Stosur, who was fifth seeded, in straight sets. After a three year
pause the two again met for the second time in 2008 at the Los Angeles Open and once again Azarenka had gotten the best of Stosur.
The Belarusian was able to defeat the Aussie for the third time in 2009 and the last time they met was at the Bank of West Classic in 2010. The two had battled on hard courts and emerging victorious for the fourth time was Azarenka.
Stosur reached the semi finals in her tour championships debut last year by defeating a list of top ten players but eventually her winning streak came to an end at the hands of Kim Clijsters. Nevertheless, she has since then reached
new heights in her career. A few weeks ago, Stosur achieved the 'almost-impossible' by beating Serena Williams on home soil in the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year and added to her haul of victories the 2011 US Open women’s singles title. With this
win under her belt, the Aussie has proved that her spell with singles success in the past two years was not a stroke of luck and that she deserves to be in the cream of the crop as much as any other WTA star.
Mean while, it was Azarenka’s third appearance at the WTA tour championships; the first time she qualified for the event was back in 2009 but she was only able to bag one match and lost the other two to Agnieszka Radwanska and
Caroline Wozniacki. Her second appearance was in 2010 and once again she lost the initial two round robin matches and wasn’t able to progress any further.
Nonetheless, she hopes to make it through the Round Robin stages with some control and power play against the best in the profession. After she claimed her second Sony Ericsson Open title in Miami, she further progressed to capture
the title in Marbella and last week in Luxembourg. Overall, Azarenka has won 8 WTA singles titles and is enjoying her best season on tour besides achieving a career high singles ranking, she also reached her first Grand Slam semi final at Wimbledon this year.
Many tennis doyens believe Azarenka will win the match but since the first round Maria Sharapova upset anything is expected from Stosur. The Aussie is a force not to be reckoned with this fall and might just have a bag full of
tricks up her sleeve.
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