Victoria Azarenka defeats Ekaterina Makarova in the fourth round – French Open 2011
World number four Victoria Azarenka defeated Russian Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-3 on Monday to book her berth in the quarterfinal of 2011 French Open. Azarenka was near flawless during her fourth round match and took just a little
over an hour to outplay the Russian in straight sets.
Azarenka looked on top of her game and did not allow the Russian to find her footing on the red stuff. Being in the excellent form over the last few days, Azarenka made a very positive start to the first set as she carried out
her shots amazingly. Displaying a great composure, the Belarusian bombshell held on to her serve games and broke Makarova with regularity to gain the early advantage. Although Makarova broke back twice in the first set, she was unable to restrict the flow
of booming forehands against her and allowed Azarenka to take the first set 6-2.
The second set also followed the same suit with Azarenka converting most of the accessible opportunities. Makarova struggled to find the answers to her opponent’s fiery shots, but miserably failing to do so, she committed a whopping
14 unforced errors in the set. Although the Russian had an acceptable 53 percent first serve on conversion in the second set, she gifted too many points to her Belarusian opponent and soon saw the climax of her story when Azarenka converted the first match
point to ensure her last eight berth at the 2011 Roland Garros.
Azarenka expressed her views in an interview, saying, "I'm in a different chapter of my career. It's going to be a different quarter-final for me. But I'm feeling really confident and I'm really looking forward to it."
The Belarusian tennis ace earned her straight sets victory by scoring fourteen winners against eighteen unforced errors. Furthermore, she won a whopping 73 percent on her first serve, an acceptable 57 percent on return and a number
of 59 points in total. In comparison, Makarova stayed behind in every department of the game and registered a meagre 45 percent on her first serve, a poor 39 percent on return and a total of 41 points in total.
This will be Azarenka’s second quarterfinal appearance at the Roland Garros, since her first in 2009 where she was ousted by eventual runner-up Dinara Safina of Russia. With this win, the Belarusian has improved her year-to-date
win loss mark to 31/8 matches and now moves on ahead to meet Chinese tennis ace Na Li for the fourth time in her career. 29-year-old Na Li in the quarterfinal after she produced an upset 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 win over Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic.
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