Victoria Azarenka

Victoria Azarenka, was born on July 31, 1989 in Minsk, Belarus. She is a professional tennis player. Azarenka is an aggressive baseliner. She is known for her well timed and powerful ground strokes. Her best shot is her backhand which is regarded as one of the strongest currently in the women’s game. She can be effective at net, as her drive volley is one of the best in the women’s game. Her main weakness’ are considered to be her serve, lacking both power and stability on second serve, and her movement due to a lack of sprinting power. Her forehand can also sometimes break down and produce unforced errors, although this has improved over the years.

In 2003 she became a professional tennis player and since then she won one ITF single title, one WTA doubles title and three ITF doubles titles. After three years she participated at the French Open where played into the first round, but lost to Anabel Medina Garrigues with the score 0-6, 6-3, 9-7, and at the US Open where lost to Anna Chakvetadze into the third round after defeating in the first round Anastasia Myskina from Russia.

Her junior tennis career was rich in prizes. She became the Junior World Champion in 2005 and had a great success. Two junior Grand Slam singles titles and three junior Grand Slam doubles titles were won. The single titles were conquered at Australian Open and US Open.

In 2007 she played at the Australian Open into the third round and at Wimbledon where had the same performance. At the Estoril Open in 2007 she managed to play the final after beating famous players like Virginie Razzano, Francesca Schiavone, Gisela Dulko and Lucie Safarova. Unfortunately she lost the final to Greta Arn from Germany and the score was 6-2, 1-6, 6-7(3).

Her partner in the doubles games is usually Max Mirnyi, who is also a player from Belarus as she is. She is very young and her future is promising. Specialists see her as a talented player and give her many chances to become a star. Let’s hope that she will stay focus and will suffer no injuries and this way she might be a great champion.

In 2010, Azarenka began the season at the Hong Kong Tennis Classic exhibition. She was part of Team Europe along with Caroline Wozniacki and Stefan Edberg. In her first match she defeated Gisela Dulko 6–1. The match was played best of 1 set due to rain. She withdrew from her remaining matches due to illness. She was seeded 6th at the Medibank International. She won her first three matches, all 7–5 in the 3rd set. In the semifinals she fell to the 5th seed Elena Dementieva 6–3, 6–1.

At the Australian Open she was seeded 7th. In her first 3 matches she only lost 8 games, with a 6–0 set in each match. She continued this trend in the 4th round by defeating Vera Zvonareva 4–6, 6–4, 6–0, taking the last 10 games. This was her first victory over Zvonareva in 5 attempts. She lost to Serena Williams in the quarterfinal 4–6, 7–6(4), 6–2 giving up a 4–0 lead in the second set. This was the third consecutive year she has lost to Williams at this tournament. Seeded 4th at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, on her way to the final, she defeated Vera Zvonareva in the quarterfinals and Agnieszka Radwanska in the semifinals. In the final she lost to defending champion Venus Williams 6–3, 7–5.

At the 2010 BNP Paribas Open, she was seeded 3rd, but was upset in the 3rd round by Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 7–6(4), 6–2.

At the 2010 Sony Ericsson Open, where she was the defending champion and 4th seed, she lost in 4th round to 14th seed, and eventual champion Kim Clijsters. This is the fourth match in the five tournaments this year that Azarenka lost to eventual champions.

At the Andalucia Tennis Experience, she was the number one seed. She had to retire in her quarterfinal match against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez leading 4-0 due to a left thigh injury.

Seeded 3rd at the Family Circle Cup, she had to retire from her first match while leading 6-2, 2-2 against qualifier Christina McHale At the 2010 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix she was upset in the 2nd round by qualifier Anna Lapushchenkova who was ranked no. 138 at the time.

At the 2010 Internazionali BNL d’Italia, as the 9th seed, Azarenka breezed through her opening matching, defeating Sesil Karatantcheva 6-1 6-4. In the following round, again struggling with injury limping at times during the match Azarenka lost to Ana Ivanović 6-4 6-4. As the 10th seed at the 2010 Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open Azarenka retired from her first round match against Shuai Peng while trailing 0-3 with a groin injury.

At the 2010 French Open, coming back from injury, Azarenka was upset, in the first round, by unseeded Gisela Dulko 1-6, 2-6. This loss caused Azarenka to fall to World No. 15.

Azarenka is unseeded at the 2010 AEGON International. She defeated 4th seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the first round, Heather Watson in the second round, and Kim Clijsters in the quarterfinals and 8th seed Marion Bartoli in the semifinals. Struggling with injuries, Azarenka fell to qualifier Ekaterina Makarova in the final.

Azarenka is seeded 14th at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships. She played comebacker Mirjana Lucic in the first round. Azarenka handed Lucic an easy defeat 6-3, 6-3.she then defeated Bojana Jovanovski in the second round 6-1 6-4, and now faces Petra Kvitova