Victoria Azarenka plonks Stefanie Voegele in the first round – Apia International Sydney 2012
Belarusian world number three, Victoria Azarenka, breezed past her 140th ranked Swiss opponent, Stefanie Voegele, in the first round of Apia International Sydney tournament. On Monday, both players squared-off for the
second time in their career and Belarusian easily cracked her opponent in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 in just an hour and 32 minutes. Sizeable crowd gathered to witness the third seed Belarusian in action for the first time in the new season.
Third seed ousted her rival earlier in the Australian Open Grand Slam two years back. The second round contest was also pretty straight forward for her, as she won the encounter in straight sets 6-4, 6-0. Considering the psychological
advantage and all the factors running in Azarenka’s favour, it was obvious that she will easily overpower her opponent and that is exactly what happened.
Azarenka commenced the proceedings in grand fashion, holding her serve in the first game and then ousted her opponent in the second to take 2-0 lead. She was in no mood to hint any sort of upset in the making; stunned everyone
with her cracking shot making ability at both corners of the court. Brilliant winners down the line and some eye-startling double-handed backhand returns were the gist of her game.
She held her serve in the third game and broke once again to take 4-0 lead upfront. She was the dominating character at the court and held her serve to take 5-0 lead. Swiss underdog helped herself to clinch the first successful
serve game in the sixth game. She flabbergasted with her first break in the seventh game and it looked interesting at that stage but her comeback was broken in the eighth game and the third seed composed her and broke for the third time in the set to bag the
first set.
World number three, Azarenka, started second set with a successful serve game, so did her opponent; score was 1-1 at that stage. Conventional start to the set hinted on a close encounter but it went other way round. Third seed
held her serve and broke in the fourth to take two games lead, pushing the scores to 3-1
Another successful serve in the fifth game and a second successive break in the sixth helped third seed to take four games lead. Last game was mere formality as the third seed smashed an ace to round off the second set and place
a berth in the second round draw.
Victoria Azarenka plays Serb Jelena Jankovic in the second round in the tournament.
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