Victoria Azarenka edges Samantha Stosur to reach the semi-finals – US Open 2012
World number one, Victoria Azarenka, edged ahead of the defending champion, Samantha Stosur, in the quarter-finals of the US Open in New York on Tuesday. It was an absolute thriller and the 28-year-old Aussie didn’t give up easily;
losing the match in the final set tie-breaker 1-6, 6-4, 6(5)-7.
Azarenka talked the media reported at the end of the match and commented, “She never gives up. She fights very hard every single match she plays and does it very well. That's probably part of the reason she's No.1 at the moment.
She's one of the players on the tour who barely gives you any points. She really pushed me to dig deep. I think the quality of tennis was really high and it could have gone either way. She kept coming back really strong and keeping me back, and I wasn't getting
as many opportunities - I just kept telling myself, 'Don't be a chicken, come on, just go, go for your shots.”
Stosur was extremely dismal at the start of the match. She failed to hold her twice on the trot and went down to a trail of 0-4. She managed to get off the mark in the following game but couldn’t hold her rival from winning the
third breakthrough of the match that rounded off the first set proceedings.
The start to the second set was pretty interesting. Both players exchanged breakthrough upfront before bagging a couple of serve games to push the scores at 3-3. The seventh seed Aussie star bagged the most crucial breakpoint of
the set in the seventh game and didn’t allow her rival to bounce back into the contest.
Stage was set for an epic ending to the classic battle and it proved to be one of the biggest nail-biting contests. A serve hold from both players coupled with double swap of breakpoints kept the scores together. The set was swinging
from one contestant to another with every game. However, the tie-breaker round was required.
Despite going down 0-4 in the tie-breaker, Stosur fought back to level it 5-5 but couldn’t stop Azarenka from winning the battle. The Belarusian top seed will contest against the winner of the clash between Maria Sharapova and
Marion Bartoli in the semi-final.
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