Australian Open – 2022: Victoria Azarenka defeated Elina Svitolina and advanced to the 2nd week in Melbourne for the first time in 6 years

Two-time winner Australian Open
Victoria Azarenka, released in its second week in Melbourne for the first time in 6 years. At the same time, the Belarusian tennis player gave her opponent, Elina Svitolina, only two games and hung the “steering wheel” in the first set.

Victoria Azarenka has already submitted the Australian Grand Slam tournament twice – in 2012 and 2013. But before that, she won here without the most important person in her life – her son Leo. This year, Victoria flew here with him, takes him with her to training, doing everything to become an example for him. in an interview with Eurosport: “I can’t say that I’m not well prepared. I started training quite early, then I got sick with the coronavirus, and this “pulled” me a little. Then there was a minor injury – due to coughing, my back was “squeezed”. It was necessary to train and be with the child as much as possible, and plus there were other things. Therefore, I ran after everything, but in the end I was still able to prioritize. ”

Victoria began the 2022 season in Adelaide, where in the first round she defeated Spaniard Badosa, whom she met in her last fight last year – in the final of the WTA-1000 tournament in Indian Wells. Azarenka took revenge, reached the 1/4 finals, where she lost to Sviontek. At Australian Open – 2022, the Belarusian received the 24th seed and, along with Vera Zvonareva and Tatyana Maria, turned out to be one of the tennis mothers, ranked in the main draw. While Vera and Tatiana have already finished their performance in singles, Victoria continues to demonstrate an incredible game. She successively defeated Panna Udvardi (Hungary) – 6:3, 6:1 and Gil-Belen Teichman (Switzerland) – 6:1, 6:2 and got to the fight with the 15th racket of the tournament – Ukrainian Elina Svitolina.

The opponent of the Belarusian tennis player in the third round, Elina Svitolina, had many bright moments in her career – and victory in the Final Championship WTA – 2018, and the bronze medal of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, and the third place in the ranking WTA . But lately, her career has taken a turn for the worse. In this regard, the Ukrainian made adjustments to the composition of her team, completing work with the British coach Andrew Bettles.

Since the new season, Elina has been working with Andis Yushka, the former coach of Elena Ostapenko. Azarenka’s advantage over Svitolina in personal meetings before the fight in Melbourne was unambiguous (4-0). She won the last of the victories over the Ukrainian woman a year ago at a tournament in Doha. Victoria shared her expectations before the game with Elina: “We already had several battles, and on different surfaces. We have trained together many times. It is unlikely that there will be many surprises on the court. She always fights no matter what. I think that this is a very important characteristic of her game.”

But the battle, unfortunately, did not work out as such. Vika crushed her opponent, hanging her “steering wheel” in the first set. In the second installment, the Ukrainian tennis player was able to find her game only in the last game, when Azarenka was already serving the match. The playing segment turned into a real swing and lasted more than 10 minutes. The two-time champion Australian Open was able to complete this roller coaster only from the 6th match point. The meeting lasted only 68 minutes – 6:0, 6:2. And Azarenka stepped into the second week of these competitions for the first time in 6 years. As a result, in 3 fights, Victoria lost only 9 games. Now the Belarusian tennis player already has 42 wins on the Melbourne courts.

Immediately after the match, Victoria admitted that the main thing for her now is to inspire her child: “This is such happiness. Not everyone has the opportunity to take their child to work, and it is priceless to me that my son can be inspired by what I do. I don’t like the expression “role model”, it implies too many expectations. But I try to understand that I am setting an example for him, and I try to show the maximum. ” Azarenka did not stop there and brought her son Leo to a press conference, which touched all the reporters. “Leo, how did mom play today?” the journalists asked. “Cool!” – the boy answered.

The publication is available in “ twitter ” Australian Open. The rights to the video belong to Australian Open (ITF).

The next opponent of the two-time winner Australian Open will become the current champion of Roland Garros Barbora Kreychikov.