Victoria Azarenka bounces over Tamira Paszek to reach the semis – Wimbledon Championships 2012
World number two, Victoria Azarenka, ended the dream run of the 37th ranked Austrian star, Tamira Paszek, in the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon Championships on Tuesday. She clinched the win in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(4)
and enhanced her head-to-head scores to 3-1 against Paszek.
Azarenka started off in aggressive fashion by holding the opening serve to love. The 21-year-old Austrian dropped two points on her serve before equalling the scores at 1-1. No problem was faced by the Belarusian tennis icon in
the following game and easily bagged the serve game.
The 22-year-old Belarusian had four opportunities to break serve in the following game that proved to be the lengthiest game of the match. However, after an intense battle Paszek managed to hold serve and tie the scores at 2-2.
With not much drama happening at the Centre Court of All England Lawn Tennis Club, both players bagged the serve games to push the scores at 4-3. Paszek, once again, faced a tight serve game. She saved a breakpoint but couldn’t
repeat the performance on the second occurrence and gave a crucial lead to her rival.
The Belarusian served for the set and bagged all four points to register another serve hold to love. It took 46 minutes for Azarenka to round off the opening set proceedings.
A cautious start to the second set witnessed both players capitalizing on the serve games. Scores reached 4-4 with no major drama in the centre. However, a double exchange of breakthroughs injected life into the match and awakened
the crowd.
In the tie-breaker round, the Belarusian utilized her experience to power down the Austrian starlet. An early mini-break did the job for Azarenka who is now comfortably placed in the semi-finals of the year’s third Grand Slam Championship.
Paszek lasted an hour and three minutes in the second set but couldn’t kept her resistance intact and fell apart in the tie-breaker.
"Tamira's been playing some amazing tennis lately - no matter what the score is, through her past experience over this month, she can still win," Azarenka stated in an interview after the match. She further added, "So I was ready
every time. You could see whenever she was down; she was really going for it. I had to stay composed and take my opportunities."
Azarenka will look to defy all the odds against the former world number one, Serena Williams, in a semi-final battle on Thursday.
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