Victoria Azarenka completes WTA Championships field
Victoria Azarenka has booked the final place in the eight-player WTA Tour Championships with her second-round win at the Kremlin Cup on Wednesday.
The Belarusian will be playing in Doha for the second straight year, but can thank the injury woes of Venus and Serena Williams, finalists at the event in 2009, for her qualification in this year’s field.
With Venus already calling time on her season due to a knee injury, Serena this week followed suit, revealing she had re-torn the tendon in her foot in her bid to return to competition before the end of the season. Serena originally sustained the injury after stepping on broken glass in a restaurant soon after her successful Wimbledon title defence, and has not played a rankings tournament since.
Azarenka now completes a field that is also made up of new world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, Vera Zvonareva, Kim Clijsters, Francesca Schiavone, Samantha Stosur, Jelena Jankovic and Elena Dementieva.
While the 21-year-old has had her share of luck in qualifying for the season-ending tournament, it’s reward for a season that yielded a title in Stanford (defeating Maria Sharapova in the final) and runner-up finishes in Dubai in February (lost to Venus) and on grass at Eastbourne (lost to then world No. 100 Ekaterina Makarova).
The Grand Slams, however, have been somewhat of a stumbling block for Azarenka, with a quarter-final finish at the Australian Open (losing to eventual champion Serena in three sets) her best showing of the year. That was followed by a first round French Open loss, third-round exit from Wimbledon and second round departure from the US Open when she dramatically collapsed on court while playing Gisela Dulko.
Even sealing the win that propelled her into the eighth qualifying spot for Doha did not prove easy for the world No. 10, as she took one hour and 11 minutes just to win the first set against Andrea Petkovic in Moscow before losing the second and bouncing back for a 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 win.
Azarenka will return to the WTA Tour Championships seeking to improve on her round-robin stage exit in her only previous appearance at the event last year.
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