Victoria Azarenka edges Angelique Kerber in her first Round Rubber – WTA Championships 2012
Reigning world number one, Victoria Azarenka, saved two match points against the fifth seed German star, Angelique Kerber, to register her first win in the Round Rubber contest at Istanbul. She lost the opening set tie-breaker 6(11)-7 but bounced back to win the second phase 7-6(2) and stole the final battle 6-4.
It was a real thumping start to her campaign of qualifying for the semi-final rounds of the WTA Championships. In a gruelling contest of three hours and six minutes, spectators witnessed a live racquet tantrum from Azarenka during the second set, tears at her face and some motivating shrieks of ‘come on’ from the 24-year-old German. It was not just a match but a battle that featured some cruel mind games from two of the best warriors from the world of women tennis. No one could distinguish any disparity in the level of game play of both players at the hard courts of Istanbul.
In a post-match interview, Azarenka stated, “Honestly, when I was up 6-2 in the tie-break, she played three great points and then I made a stupid mistake. I made a few too many unforced errors today, but it happens, and she was playing really well - she forced me to do those unforced errors.”
She further added, “On the match points I just thought I had to go for it - she wasn't going to miss, and I didn't want to wait for her to make a mistake. I was so determined to make it happen. I wanted to take destiny into my hands - if I missed those shots, it was going to be up to me, not up to my opponent.”
Just a couple of breakthroughs in the opening set were witnessed that enforced the tie-breaker into play. Azarenka took a lead of 6-2 but squandered it and lost the opening set in disarray. In the second set, the German star failed to hold serve in the opening game but fought back to equalize in the eighth game. She almost broke serve again in the 10th game of the set; squandered two match points in that game and crowd also witnessed a racquet smash onslaught from tearful 23-year-old Belarusian.
The second set tie-breaker was inched by the number one player in the world. In the final set, Kerber fought back twice to equalize the scores after losing a breakpoint but the 10th game breakthrough for her rival forced her to bow down in front of the Belarusian superstar.
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