Victoria Azarenka and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova battled out through the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open
World number eight Victoria Azarenka of Belarus yet again defeated Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open at Miami, Florida on Sunday night. Azarenka made a tremendous comeback in contest after
dropping the opening set and finished off the three-set thriller 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, in two hours and thirteen minutes.
Azarenka registered her 10th victory of the running WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) season at Miami and beat the Slovak for the sixth time in her career. The Belarusian now leads the head-to-head record against Cibulkova
6-1 and advances to the fourth round of the Sony Ericsson Open.
Cibulkova had an excellent start to the competitions and took her opponent with surprise by striking three serve breaks. Azarenka responded to her opponent with two break points but couldn’t avoid losing the first set to Cibulkova
at 3-6.
Tide turned in the next set as the Belarusian bounced back strongly with her 76 per cent first serve accuracy and reeling off 17 out of 25 total serve points. Cibulkova broke her once but brilliant power hitting from Azarenka pushed
her opponent on the back foot and the Slovak submitted the second set to the Belarusian at 3-6 to impose a third.
With one set a piece, the decider was sure to be a thrilling one. Seventy nine per cent first serve and two serve breaks from Azarenka put her in a commanding position in the contest. The Slovak finally crumbled at 4-6, letting
a pass to Azarenka to the round of 16 after a hard fight. The Belarusian will now face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia in the next stage of the Sony Ericsson Open.
The 19-year-old Russian strained hard to defeat the 12th seed Czech, Petra Kvitova by 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-0, in two hours and five minutes to advance further in the tournament. It was an enthralling contest, ending in the
15th win for the Russian in the running WTA season. Pavlyuchenkova avenged her defeat from Kvitova which she suffered at Brisbane International Championships this year and levelled her head-to-head record against the Czech to 2-2 with her victory
at Miami.
An aggressive start to the contest by the Russian teenager put her in command of the opener and she belted two immediate serve breaks to seal the first set 6-4. A terrific comeback from Kvitova was observed in the next set as she
cracked in three serve breaks to drag the second set into a tie breaker. The Czech proved better in the decider and restricted Pavlyuchenkova to three points while winning the second set 7-6(3) to level the contest 1-1.
An inspiring show of error-free tennis from Pavlyuchenkova completely blew away her Czech opponent. The Russian broke her rival in each of the serve games and reeled of six straight games to seal the match in the most assertive
manner at 6-0. She will meet Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round to battle for a spot in the quarter-finals.
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