Victoria Azarenka vs Vera Zvonareva – Match Preview: TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships 2011
The semi finals of the of the WTA Championships 2011 initiate on the fifth day of the event and top two players from the White Group are two compete against the top two players of the Red Group. The winner from each group will then battle against each other in the final for the most prestigious title of the year-end Championships.
The other two players to fight for a spot in the final are; fourth seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka from the White Group and sixth seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva from the Red Group. The players are to encounter each other on the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul, Turkey on Saturday the 29th of October 2011.
In their professional career the two have competed against each other nine times; twice in 2007, once in 2008, 2009 and 2011, and four times in 2010. Zvonareva takes the lead in the head-to-head run by winning six matches to Azarenka’s three matches. Their initial meeting took place in 2007 at Indian Wells and Zvonareva had conquered Azarenka in straight sets.
In their second meeting which took place at the Luxembourg Open Zvonareva again took the edge over her adversary. The Russian managed to take a 4-0 lead in the head-to-head run before Azarenka made a comeback. The Belarusian made a return against her adversary in their fifth meeting which took place at the Australian Open.
Moreover, in the four matches that the two played against each other in 2010, Zvonareva had tied the score with Azarenka at two matches each. However, the last match that the two played was this year at the Miami Open and this time Azarenka had bagged a victory over the Russian in straight sets.
The fourth seeded Belarusian has competed for the competition back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. At her debut performance Azarenka was only able to bag one game which was against Jelena Jankovic but had lost the other two matches to Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska respectively.
During 2010, she lost the first two matches two Kim Clijsters and Zvonareva but in her third match, she once again defeated Jelena Jankovic.
This is her third appearance and she did not repeat her previous mistakes and managed to qualify for the semi finals by getting rid of current French Open titlist Li Na and current US Open champion Samantha Stosur. However, she lost her third rubber to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli.
On the contrary, Zvonareva made her first appearance at the WTA Championships in 2004. Although, she saw an early round disappointment at her debut performance, in 2008 she qualified for the second time and became a runner-up by losing to Venus Williams in the final match. However, she also managed to qualify in 2009 but once again saw an early round exit and then 2010, where she was a semi finalist.
The Russian has a lot of experience in this arena and she desires to move into the finals. However, this year Azarenka has been on a roll and is a force not to be reckoned with. Nevertheless, many experts are of the view that Azarenka will win this match and might reserve a spot in the final.
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