Victoria Azarenka steamrolls Elena Vesnina to reach the quarters – China Open 2012
Reigning world number one, Victoria Azarenka, raced into the quarter-finals of the China Open on Thursday after dispatching the 26-year-old Russian qualifier, Elena Vesnina, at the hard courts of Beijing. She won the match in an
hour and 32 minutes, registering straight sets score line of 6-3, 6-3.
It was a one-sided clash that witnessed a controlled display from the 23-year-old Belarusian. World number 78, Vesnina, was playing her third head-to-head match against Azarenka and the results of the previous two matches weren’t
any different than this one.
Vesnina still hasn’t managed to solve the puzzle of the top ranked superstar who has reached the quarter-final or greater in 13 of her 16 Women Tennis Association tours this year. It is another sublime chance for the Belarusian
superstar to cement her position at the top of the world rankings.
The Russian showed immense control on her serves in the first phase of the match. Just a single flat game for Vesnina destroyed the hard work she put in to make the contest look interesting. Azarenka broke serve in the fourth game
that allowed her to pile up a lead of 3-1. She was under the woods in the seventh game but hung on to squeeze another serve hold and retain the lead.
Azarenka didn’t take the Russian easy and hammered her in the starting game of the second set to stamp her authority. She held her serve to protect the breakthrough and led the scores 2-0. The aggression fired back for the Belarusian
whose serve was broken in the fourth game that equalized the scores at 2-2.
Vesnina failed to hold serve in the following game and gifted the breakthrough back to her rival who smartly held her serve to push the lead further. No breakthrough in the following two games enhanced the score line to 5-3 in
favour of the top seed Belarusian. After six deuces in the final game of the match, Azarenka managed to break serve and ended the encounter.
Next up for the shrieking queen is the Swiss upset queen, Romina Oprandi, who will look to defy the odds to keep her successful run alive.
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