Victoria Azarenka overpowers Agnieszka Radwanska to reach the semis – Australian Open 2012
An amazing turnaround was witnessed in the first quarter-final of the Australian Open on Tuesday, as the world number three, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, made a tremendous recovery to turn the tables on the world number eight,
Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. The third seed was trailing by one set but eventually settled the final scores in her favour at 6-7(0), 6-0, 6-2, to reach the semi-finals of the Grand Slam of Asia-Pacific.
A jam-packed crowd at the glorious Rod Laver Arena at the Melbourne Park came out to see the two top-tenners going hard at each other and it was worth a watch. It was a very close contest initially but turned out to be an all-Belarusian
show in the later parts. Azarenka dropped the opening set after a stiff battle with the Pole opponent but absolutely blew away the eighth seed in the following two sets to register victory in the most assertive fashion.
The opener witnessed intense game play between the two competitors and a total of eight serve breaks were exchanged. Both contestants kept moving neck-to-neck in the competition and the scores reached 6-5, with advantage Azarenka.
The third seed failed to convert the vital set point and went through a terrible slump instead, coughing a series of unforced errors to take the game into a tie-breaker round. She kept on hitting the ball long and wide of the tennis court and dropped 11 straight
points on her faults to gift away the first set to Radwanska at 6-7(0).
Enraged Belarusian converted her frustration into her strength and came out firing at her opponent in the following set. She nailed three-successive serve breaks to blast past the second set with a bagel. Azarenka broke her eighth
seed opponent in every serve game to close out the second set at 6-0, levelling the matchup at one-all.
Azarenka carried on her winning ways in the final set and kept cracking forehand winners down the line to drive Radwanska out of the competition. She finished off the dramatic turnaround by pocketing the third set at 6-2 and confirmed
a berth in the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
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