Victoria Azarenka breezes past Barbora Zahlavova Strycova into 2nd round – Luxembourg Open 2011
Top seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka displayed exceptional skills to triumph over the Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in straight sets at the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open 2011, an indoor hard court tournament from WTA tier-III
series taking place in Luxembourg Coty, Luxembourg. She earned a 6-2, 6-4 victory over the 25-year-old Czech to secure a second round spot on Wednesday.
World number three, Azarenka played her first tournament since retiring with a right foot injury at Beijing. She re-ignited her old spark to tumble over the Czech, ranked forty-one places below her, to advance into the second round
of this US $220,000 event. The Belarusian required one and half four to progress and after earning this victory, she extended lead in the head-to-head series by 2-0.
22-year-old Azarenka made a shaky entry in the opening set. However, after she lost her serve in the third game, the Belarusian bombarded powerful groundstrokes from her arsenal of skills to go on a five match tear. She eventually
sealed the opener by winning six games to two.
Azarenka repeated her mistakes and lost an early serve in the fifth game of the final set. However, she spotted her rhythm back by snatching the break back in the eighth game and then broke the Czech’s serve again in the tenth
game to clinch the set with a 6-4 win.
Summing up the seed’s performance, Azarenka failed to fend off both breakpoints came across but capitalised on five out of eleven breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to bag the game comfortably. Despite spilling more errors
and four double faults, she registered a superb 74 percent win on her slightly higher first serve share.
"In the second set I made more mistakes and she got into the match," the delighted Belarusian declared. "She's the kind of player who always makes you hit an extra shot. I'm glad that I was able to get back in the second set and
not give it away and prolong the match."
Next up for the highest ranked player of this event, Azarenka is the Italian Alberta Brianti who battled past Georgian Anna Tatishvili in three sets to reach this spot.
31-year-old Italian needed almost two hours to overpower the Georgian, ten years younger than her, on their first meeting. She fended off eight out of twelve breakpoints faced and converted four out of fourteen breakpoint opportunities
to her advantage and secured a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 victory.
Tags: