The two players have met twice before, with the Belarusian winning each time. It has been three years since their last match. At that time, the Belarusian was in a higher position in the ranking but the situation has now reversed: Victoria is now attempting to restore her top position in the WTA. Meanwhile, the Romanian is currently the second seed, behind the American Serena Williams. Despite this, bookmakers believed the Belarusian would win.
The beginning of the match was a success for Azarenko: she broke her rival’s serve but then yielded four games in a row. The Belarusian failed to recover her position and the set ended in the Romanian’s favour 6:3. The second set began decisively with Azarenko pressuring her opponent and making fewer mistakes. The result was a positive 6:4. Rain stopped play when the third set was at 2:1 (Azarenko leading); the match was resumed 90 minutes later. The break was really not to the Belarusian’s advantage: she gave up her lead to lose the set 4:6.
As a result, Azarenko finished her performance in New York for the second time at the quarter finals stage. A year ago, she lost to Russian Yekaterina Makarova but in the previous two years in a row had made the finals, leaving titled Serena Williams behind. Her recent match against Halep lasted for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Azarenko served no aces and made 6 double faults, while Halep scored three aces and made two double faults of her own.
By Igor Leshin
