Victoria Azarenka outclasses Nadia Petrova to reach quarterfinals – Wimbledon Championships 2011
World number four Victoria Azarenka continued her impressive run on the Women’s Tennis Association tour with another stunning performance at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in United Kingdom. The Belarusian star crushed
Russian challenge Nadia Petrova in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 to book her quarterfinal berth at the prestigious 2011 Wimbledon Championships on Monday.
Looking for the first Grand Slam title of her career, Azarenka made a strong start to the match. Clinching four straight points on her first service game, she dented her opponent’s confidence levels. Petrova kept fighting and managed
to hold on to her first two serve games to level the game score 2-2. Making her first serve break in sixth game of the opening set, the fourth seeded Azarenka earned a curial 4-2 lead. She had another chance of breaking the serve in eight game of the set,
which she converted without any trouble to take the set score lead 1-0.
The second set also started on a very similar note with Azarenka displaying some top quality tennis to take 2-0 lead. Petrova showed amazing fighting spirit and determination to break straight back to reduce her opponent’s advantage
to 2-1, serving to level the score. However she failed to serve well on her next service game and gave Azarenka an easy opportunity to put herself in the driving seat.
The Belarusian broke the serve at regular intervals to race to a 5-1 lead in the set. Sending a big forehand winner down the line, she made two match points available to her and then converted the first one to advance in the last
eight at the championships.
Azarenka has been in top form since the year 2011 has started. She has already bagged two WTA titles this year at Miami and Marbella. Following her consistent performances on the tour, she rose to her highest career ranking of
world number four. If she can maintain her current level of play, she can definitely pull off major upsets against other top seeded players at the tournament. Petrova started well but she fell under pressure giving a large number of free points to her opponent.
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