For a while we had gotten used to the status quo: Vika at number one, Serena beating her in the latter rounds of tournaments. Last week though we had to adjust to a reversal of fortunes; it was Serena who was the top ranked player and Vika who had the W over Serena on her record.
It looked like we might be on the dawn of a new Serena era at the start of the year. Overwhelmingly favored to win in Melbourne, she bowed out in an injury-hit quarter-final. It was Azarenka who went on to take the title, proving as she did so that she was the hard court player to beat of this era. This match was Azarenka’s chance to affirm that statement. Serving at 5-4 in the first set tie-break with a mini-break in hand, it looked like she might. But a double-fault gave rise to whispers that Vika did not have the mental strength to beat a woman who had dealt her nine consecutive losses, four of them while she was number one in the world.
But it was all whispers and hearsay. Azarenka held her nerve and took the set. Things were very much there between her ears. The last time she had lost to Serena in the US Open final she did not have the experience of finishing a season number one, rising above a media storm concerning her Medical time out in her Melbourne semi, and defending a Major title. She was a better player than she had been back in September in New York; a stronger one.
Of course, Serena was not going to just let the first set slip out of her hands without a fight. She had fought tooth and nail to make the business end of the week, coming back from 1-4 in the third against Kvitova in the last eight, and with the number one having come to her as her fine results piled up, she would do her best to dress it with another title, potentially her eighth in the last 12 months. Nailing aces and winners, she took the second set 6-2, breaking away at 2-2 to turn the momentum her way.
No one on the tour is a better front runner than Serena and it looked unlikely that Azarenka would turn matters around. But perhaps the run of games from 2-2 against her had actually worked in Vika’s favor. Unable to have a say in proceedings, Vika took somewhat of a breather. Meanwhile Serena had been cranking up the intensity and continued to do so as she blasted a forehand return winner down the line at 0-0 for 0-30. Vika took on the third set with gay abandon, moving forward on the next point to hit a forehand winner and surprising Serena with her sudden attack as she hit another forehand winner. Vika hit her first serve big and kept up the depth and pace on her forehand to draw errors from Serena to take the first game of the third and get out of the rut.
Vika did not look back, breaking a somewhat bamboozled Serena for 2-0, her depth of shot and angles paying dividends, a forehand winner sealing the break. Try as Serena did to fight her way back, Vika was her good old solid self while Serena hit more errors than winners. Holding her nerve, Vika served out for the match, a big first serve drawing an error off the return from Serena. Beating her fist on her chest and pointing her forefinger skyward, Vika knew that this win meant more than who was at the top of the rankings, a status she knows Serena sees only as an inevitable conclusion to good results and not a worthy achievement in itself. This win was solid proof that Vika was Serena’s worthy adversary on hard courts and a promising sign of things to come should they meet in Miami in April, Serena’s home and one of her favorite tournaments and a venue where Vika is a two time Champion, beating Serena in the 2009 final.
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