Victoria Azarenka defeats Maria Sharapova to win the Sony Ericsson Open
8th seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka destroyed 16th seeded Russian Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-4 on the 2nd of April to win her second title at the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open at Miami. She trashed Sharapova’s
dreams of winning a title since May 2010.
Ranked 8th in the world, Azarenka is in good shape this season as she made a quarter-final berth at Sydney and Indian Wells. In addition to this, she displayed her top notch performance here as she upset 2nd seeded
Belgian Kim Clijsters and 3rd seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva in straight sets to reach this spot.
The 21-year-old Azarenka was on fire right from the beginning as she broke the former world number one’s serve in the very first game. Though she lost her serve in the second game, she bounced back to reel off the next five games
in a row.
The Belarusian entered the second set on the same track as she won the first four games through her quick forehands and backhands. Although Azarenka got broken thrice in the second set she fought back well and eventually clinched
the set with a 6-4 win converting four out of eight breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
Azarenka clearly outclassed the Russian throughout the match as she committed less double faults and had a higher first serve share of 69 percent as compared to her rival’s 57 percent. Furthermore the Belarusian converted eight
out of sixteen breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win the match in straight sets spectacularly.
The 23-year-old Sharapova on the other hand had won nine out of her last ten matches including a semi-final berth at Indian Wells a fortnight ago before losing to world number one Caroline Wozniacki. Despite her tremendous performance
in this WTA Premier event, she was flat at the start of the opening set. She lost her opening serve and although she broke back in the proceeding game, Sharapova failed to win a single game in the following nine games of the match. The Russian committed 43
unforced errors and held her serve just once in the match.
Azarenka is expected to climb two ranks in the WTA Premier World Rankings next week which would be her career best rank.
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