Victoria Azarenka vs. Elena Vesnina: Third round preview – China Open 2012
World number one, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, will contest her third round battle against the surprise contender from Russia, Elena Vesnina, on the hard courts of Beijing on Thursday. The belligerent top seed will be fighting for a place in the quarter-final round of the China Open.
23-year-old Azarenka stepped on the hard courts of Beijing as the hot favourite for winning the WTA Premier Series title. She had an explosive start to the tournament, blasting her way through the initial two rounds, annihilating her opponents in straight sets to reach the third round. She had no troubles at all in the opener and disposed of the French underdog, Alize Cornet, 6-1, 6-0, dropping merely one game in the entire match.
She carried on with her winning roll against the German tennis diva, Sabine Lisicki, in the second round and eased her way to victory after settling the final score line at 6-4, 6-2. Azarenka is expected to sustain her impetus in the upcoming matches and go all the way to bag her fifth WTA championship title of the running season.
On the other hand, 78th ranked Vesnina has been the surprise package of the tournament, dumping a couple of superior ranked opponents to reach this far. She entered the main draw after clearing the qualifiers and stunned the German tennis sensation, Mona Barthel, with a double-breadstick, 6-1, 6-1, in her opening encounter of China Open campaign. The 26-year-old Russian then went on to dump the Austrian youngster, Tamira Paszek, 7-6(5), 6-2, to book a date with the world number one in the pre-quarter-finals.
Albeit the Thursday’s encounter is looked as a one-sided matchup in favour of the top seed Azarenka, Vesnina could come up with another surprising result to beat all the odds. Her last two victories over better-ranked rivals must have given her huge confidence and she will come out with all guns blazing against Azarenka on Thursday. Vesnina has got nothing to lose and she can go for an aggressive approach right from the beginning, which is the only way she can create any chances of an upset.
Azarenka has faced the Russian underdog on two prior occasions. Their first meeting was held in the year 2007 when the Belarusian stood victorious against her in Tashkent, finishing the match in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2. Vesnina against encountered Azarenka two years later in Indian Wells Masters event but had to receive a similar fate once again, falling at 3-6, 5-7. Vesnina was ranked at number 56 at that time and her rankings have fallen significantly till date. It is difficult to say how she will devise her game plan to hunt down the hot favourite world number one in the upcoming crunch game.
Azarenka leads 2-0 against Vesnina on the hard courts and is in prime form at the moment. Her 58-8 winning record and the current rankings say it all. She will be the hot favourite for winning in straight sets, whilst Vesnina will hope for a miracle to happen to defeat Azarenka one-on-one.
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