Victoria Azarenka vs Li Na – Match Preview:
TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships 2011
The TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships is one of the most prestigious tennis championships in the world and features the world's top eight singles players, who will compete for the most desirable title. The eight players are divided
into two groups of four players each in the Red and the White group. The third day of the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships 2011 is set to commence on Thursday the 27th of October.
Kicking off the third round robin matches are two competitors, who have got what it takes to call the shots, but both appear as two opposite ends of the world, in terms of their present form. While Victoria Azarenka has been enjoying
a terrific form, Li is barely able to hold her own and one tends to think it was a one hit wonder when she won the French Open at Roland Garros this year. Nevertheless, the match becomes more captivating with these incongruities and we will have to wait and
see the outcome.
In the head-to-head series, Li leads with four matches to Azarenka’s one. The Chinese as beaten Azarenka twice this year on the major arena; initially this year, Li toppled the Belarusian in the fourth round of the Australian Open
and finished as a runner-up at the tournament. She again repeated the feat in the quarterfinal of the French Open and progressed o win the title.
Azarenka qualified for this event for the first time in 2009 but she only bagged one match and lost two matches to Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska. Making her second appearance back-to-back in 2010, however, that tournament
also did not turn out the way she wanted as she lost the initial two round robin matches.
Nonetheless, she hopes to make it through in her third appearance at the WTA Championships 2011 with some command on her game and surprisingly this time she was able to conquer her first power play against the current US Open Champion
Stosur.
On the whole, Azarenka has shown tremendous improvement in her style and technique and is enjoying her greatest term of this year’s season besides bagging a career high singles ranking of world number 3 which was achieved on 12th
of September. In addition to all this, she not only bagged three WTA titles but was also a semi finalist at Wimbledon this year, making it the first time she ever reached so far in the major arena.
On the other hand, the Chinese superstar is playing for the first time at the season-ending championships and managed to qualify for the event by bagging her maiden Grand Slam coup at the French Open along with a title in Sydney
during the start of the year by getting rid of Kim Clijsters in the final. Although unfortunate, Li was not capable of hauling another title after her success at Roland Garros but it seems that she is gaining momentum with every passing match in Istanbul.
A majority of tennis pundits and gurus are of the view that Azarenka will avenge her loss against Li but if the Chinese wonder brings her Agame, then who is to say what might happen!
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