Australian Open 2012 – Women tennis highlights and updates

Written by: Staff on 28th January 2012

Australian Open 2012 - Women tennis highlights and updates

Maria Sharapova of Russia reacts during her women's singles third round match against Angelique Kerber of Germany at at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 21 January 2012. EPA/MAST IRHAM |

Singles – Final: (3) Victoria Azarenka def. (4) Maria Sharapova 6-3 6-0

All the way back on February 2, 2007, we made up a list of players likely to do big things, based on their quality points. Excluding injured veterans (i.e. Venus and Serena Williams; also Mary Pierce), the #2 name on the list was Victoria Azarenka, who was then a 17-year-old ranked #73. With this, she has finally come through.

Of course, she didn’t face much resistance here. It was about as bad as the score. Maria Sharapova’s serve mostly wasn’t there, and without that, she just wasn’t in it. She made 30 unforced errors, agains 14 winners, won only 18% of second serve points, and managed only two holds. Ugh.

Azarenka has been on an incredible streak this year — she already has titles at both Sydney and the Australian Open, the two toughest events so far. And she was in the final of the 2011 year-end Championships as well. It’s looking .more and more as if the tennis world is being divided between two big, strong young women, Azarenka and Petra Kvitova. And, right now, Azarenka is the one on top. With this, she takes over the #1 ranking — her first time on top, and reportedly only the third time a player has risen to #1 as a direct result of winning her first Slam.

Maria Sharapova is going to have a hard time winning more Slams if she can’t fix that serve of hers. But she did well enough to rise to #3 in the world, and she isn’t far behind Kvitova in points. She will certainly have chances for #2 this spring; she might even have a shot at #1.