Azarenka Aims For US Open Title

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 31st July 2013

Azarenka Aims For US Open Title

epa03757892 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus serves to Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal during their first round match for the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 24 June 2013. EPA/ANDY RAIN |

World No. 3 Victoria Azarenka is a no-nonsense competitor who does not hold a lot back. Last year at the US Open, facing her nemesis Serena Williams in the final, she

served for the match at 5-4 in the third set. She didn’t play a terrible game, but by no means played a great one. Williams would win the set 7-5 and the title, and then No. 1 Azarenka was on the outside looking in.

But even though the loss was very painful, she sensed that she would have another opening. She kept working on improving the little things in her game, and earlier this year she reaped the benefits as she repeated as the Australian Open titlist, and then a couple of weeks later she scored her first win over Williams in four years in the final of Doha.

“I think that particular loss made me stronger and I learned a lot,” she said. “It showed me where I needed to get better. I wasn’t 100 percent satisfied with that outcome, but the outcome wasn’t that important because I knew I gave my best.”

The top seed at this week’s Southern Californian Open, Azarenka makes no bones about what her intentions are the rest of the summer: to play at a very high level and arrive in New York healthy. She has a sole goal in my mind and it doesn’t involve taking a well-played loss.

“My goal is to win the US Open and that will make me happy,” she said. “Until I reach that – my eyes are only on that goal.”

The Belarusian has had a difficult year. She didn’t lose a match until Madrid (although she had to withdraw from two tournaments with injuries) and then lost a close three set match to another rival, Maria Sharapova, at the French Open.

“I would be happy if I would have won, but I wasn’t so disappointed because I improved from the year before,” she said. “But results are the outcome of your work and I am more focused on my work than results.”

However, then Azarenka was forced to pull out prior to her second round match against Flavia Pennetta at Wimbledon after taking a very hard spill in the first round where she injured her knee and hip.

She couldn’t hit a ball for two and half weeks after that, but believes that she was lucky not to have been on the disabled list for much longer.

“I’m here and ready to play a tournament and with that kind of fall, I’m pretty fortunate to be playing,”

The 24-year-old Azarenka is very demanding of herself. She was the world’s top junior, and when she came on tour she and her elite peers such as Caroline Wozniacki, Agnieszka Radwanska and Petra Kvitova began to do damage early on.

“In the early stages of your career that’s what you call pressure, when the bar is high and you are trying to grab it, but sometimes you can’t and you need to build the stairs to be able to grab it,” she said.

Azarenka does not back off from challenges. She realizes that pro tennis is a pressure- packed world and she’s more than willing to leap on the field of battle with both guns blazing.

“I think it makes you stronger, it keeps you on your toes because if it’s easy, it’s not fun,” she said.