Serena Williams: WTA Player of the Year 2012 – Tennis Special
When she returned to the professional tennis circuit this year, no one expected that she would ever regain her vintage form. She appeared a bit rusty at the start but it was a mere warm-up for the veteran to launch the absolute
onslaught. Once she found her winning groove, there was no other tennis professional who could stand in her path, not even the reigning Top-5 contestants. By the end of the circuit, Serena Williams has been announced as the WTA Player of the Year 2012 last
week.
31-year-old American powerhouse has been the most dominating force on the tennis courts this season, as her 58-4 winning record in singles category clearly depicts. Williams was sidelined from the WTA Tour for a significant time
last year and many tennis fanatics believed it was the end of her career. However, the veteran proved everyone wrong on her thumping return this year and silenced all her critics with some of the most memorable performances of her career.
The American returned to the tennis courts in Brisbane this January as the 12th ranked contender but was outplayed by Daniela Hantuchova in the quarter-final. She could barely last the fourth round of the Australian
Open Grand Slam championships, suffering an upset at the hands of Ekaterina Makarova of Russia. She was also the quarter-finalist at Miami Masters and still title-less on her comeback voyage.
Williams finally found her luck at the clay courts of Charleston, where she overwhelmed Lucie Safarova in the final round to bag her maiden title of the running season. She carried on with her winning impetus at the Mutua Madrid
Open and defeated the likes of the former world number one, Caroline Wozniacki, the then world number two Maria Sharapova and then the current world number, Victoria Azarenka, to claim her second clay-court championship.
Her opening round loss in the opening round of Roland Garros French Open was a huge upset for her tennis fans but it ignited the beginning of the onslaught from Williams. She added another Grand Slam trophy to her tally at Wimbledon
Championships after defeating the third seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the final. Williams blasted her way to her fourth WTA title of the year in Stanford and outclassed Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets.
Williams’ gold medal triumph at the 2012 London Olympics brought her the honour of becoming just the second women in the history of the game to complete her Career Golden Grand Slam. Steffi Graf was the first WTA player to accomplish
this feat. Williams again defeated Azarenka and Sharapova on her way to the gold medal victory.
She couldn’t go past German tennis prodigy, Angelique Kerber, at the Cincinnati Masters event but made a roaring comeback at the US Open Championships on her home soil. Williams was once again victorious against the world number
one, Azarenka, in the final of the Grand Slam event and extended her tally to 15. She finished the 2012 season on a high note by bagging the coveted circuit-ending grand finale, the WTA Championships, against Sharapova.
The American veteran claimed a total of seven WTA singles titles, including two Grand Slam trophies and an Olympic gold medal. No doubt she had to be the player of the year 2012 and can surely regain her lost world number one rank
by posting similar sort of performances in the coming WTA Tour.
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