Victoria Azarenka defeats Arantxa Santonja; cruises into the quarters of the Mutua Madrid Open
Fourth seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka destroyed Spanish Arantxa Parra Santonja with a bagel on Thursday. She registered a 6-0, 6-3 win over the 28-year-old Spaniard to advance into the quarter-finals of the 2011 Mutua Madrilena
Madrid Open.
After recently overpowering world number 70 Santonja at Marbella, Azarenka again displayed top notch performance as she forced the Spaniard out from Park Manzanares. She has now extended her lead in the head-to-head series against
Santonja by 2-0.
Ranked fifth in the WTA Premier rankings, Azarenka has won nine out of her last ten matches. She has already won titles at Miami and Marbella earlier this season and entered confidently in this WTA Premier Mandatory event. The
Belarusian smoothly sailed into this spot as she earned double bagels against Vera Dushevina and double breadsticks against Sofia Arvidsson in the first two rounds.
In the opening set of this sixty-two minutes match, the Belarusian unleashed flurry of ground strokes to reel off first six games in a row and clinched with an awesome 6-0 victory. She had a much better first serve share of 65
percent as compared to Santonja’s 38 percent and registered an amazing 82 percent win on it. Azarenka faced zero breakpoints and converted three out of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
The Belarusian carried winning momentum into the second set and her opening serve plausibly. She lost her serves twice but broke the Spaniard’s serve four times to seal the set by winning six games to three. Azarenka produced higher
first serve share of 70 percent as opposed to Santonja’s 42 percent and earned a convincing 63 percent win on it.
"I played a very solid game," Azarenka said afterwards. "I was dominating the whole match, which gives me a good feeling and a lot of confidence."
She will next face Lucie Safarova who downed Australian Jarmila Gajdosova in straight sets to reach this spot. The Czech converted four out of ten breakpoint opportunities to clinch the match with a 6-3, 6-3 score line.
Another seed advanced into the quarter-finals later that day as sixth seeded Chinese Li Na bounced from a set down to win in a three set thriller against Italian Roberta Vinci.
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