Victoria Azarenka slays Yanina Wickmayer to reach the semis – Qatar Total Open 2012
World number one, Victoria Azarenka, continued with her unbeaten run to dispose of the inferior-ranked Belgian opponent, Yanina Wickmayer, in the quarter-final rounds of the Qatar Total Open on Friday afternoon. The Belarusian spent just 67 minutes to wrap up an emphatic victory over the unseeded opponent in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, to book a spot in the semi-final round of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Premier Tour event in Doha, Qatar.
It was a fairly one-sided contest, with the top seed Azarenka dominating for most of the time. She was off to a belligerent start in the opening set, finishing if off with a bagel and then carried on her winning impetus in the following set to drive Wickmayer out of the competition with commanding ease.
"I would consider the first set as a perfect set. I was really going for every shot I could and everything was working," Azarenka said. "In the second set I had opportunities in every game, I just couldn't convert them. But it's important the way I finished the second set. It was the same way as I started the match. Yanina came back and started to go for her shots, which I expected from her."
Azarenka banged 72 per cent of her first serve on target and secured 22 out of 36 points on it to reign supreme over her bleak opponent. The world number one crafted 12 break opportunities in the match and converted half of them to get the better of Wickmayer. The unseeded Belgian had a brilliant start to the tournament, stunning the seventh seed Italian, Francesca Schiavone, 7-6(4), 6-4, in the second round clash but failed to do her basics right in the Friday’s contest against the top seed. She registered just two serve breaks in the entire matchup and pocketed merely 37 of the total 98 points being played in the contest.
The top seed Belarusian powered her way through the opening set, nailing three successive breaks of serve to push her opponent on her back foot right from the beginning. Wickmayer utterly failed to hold any of her serve in the opening set but posed considerable resistance in the following set extend the match a bit. She broke the Belarusian serve twice in the second set but three cracking break point conversions from the world number one drew curtains for Wickmayer at 4-6.
Azarenka will take on the fourth seed Pole competitor, Agnieszka Radwanska, in the semi-final draw to fight for a title shot in the final of the Qatar Total Open.
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