World number one, Serena Williams, suffered a scare against Victoria Azarenka as the Belarusian throw away 3 match before losing 7-6(5) 3-6 7-6(1) in the 3rd round of the Madrid Open on 06/05/2015.
Azarenka served for the match at 6-5 and 40-0 in the 3rd set but could not secure the win.
Williams fought back to 30-40 before Azarenka served 3 consecutive double faults to lose the game and was then defeated in the resulting tiebreak.
The American eased through her 1st 2 matches but had a much tougher test against the hard-hitting Azarenka, ranked 31, who is rediscovering her form after an injury plagued 2014. Both players had their serves broken in a tight 1st set before Williams came back from 5-1 down in the tiebreak to win 7-5.
The American looked in control as she broke in the 5th game of the next set but then lost her concentration. She started making unforced errors and threw her racket to the ground as she went on to drop her next 2 service games and the set.
Azarenka, a former world number 1 and two times Australian Open winner, again came from a break down in the decisive set and was poised to get the better of Williams but the tension got to her in a spectacular stumble.
“It was intense,” said Williams after her win, which took two hours 43 minutes. “I could have won, she could have won. I ended up winning and I don’t know how.”
Williams, who is warming up for Roland Garros where she is looking to win her 20th grand slam title, will now play the winner of Carla Suarez Navarro’s game against Ana Ivanovic.
Defending champion Maria Sharapova needed all her battling qualities to beat France’s Caroline Garcia. The Russian edged through 6-2 4-6 7-5 after fending off a brilliant comeback from the world number 28.
4th seed Petra Kvitova played some of her best tennis of the week to see off Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1 6-4 in little more than an hour, committing only 8 unforced errors.
The powerful Czech will play Romania’s Irina Begu for a place in the semi-finals while Sharapova’s next opponent will be former world number one Caroline Wozniacki who beat Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3 6-2.
In the men’s draw, David Ferrer faced a repeat of his 2nd round match in Madrid last year but this time had no trouble crushing fellow Spaniard Albert Ramos 6-4 6-0, while 6th seed Tomas Berdych beat Richard Gasquet 7-6(3) 7-5.
Serena Williams vs Victoria Azarenka, 06/05/2015, 12:10 GMT, Match Center
Madrid Open: Williams beats Azarenka insecurely
No comments:
Post a Comment